


Worth Your Weight in Burning

by Walking_Pillar_of_Salt



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Blind Character, Blind!Roy Mustang, Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, Everything Will Make Sense At the Credit Sequence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Maes Hughes is Hella Dead, Romance, Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-10 08:34:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12908196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Walking_Pillar_of_Salt/pseuds/Walking_Pillar_of_Salt
Summary: "A man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river but then he’s still left with the river. A man takes his sadness and throws it away but then he’s still left with his hands.”Or, Roy is blind and, in lieu of sight, follows his heart.





	1. This is Acting

**Author's Note:**

> If all the world’s a stage and everything is a performance — well, then. This is your performance. This is your swan-song.

You blink, slow and heavy. 

The room is still dark. 

 _“_ I’m sorry, Roy.” Marcoh says. “I rebuilt your eyes, but…”

“I doubt anyone else could have done better.” You say. “Thank you for trying.”

“The Gate likely removed the neurons responsible for sight as well, in addition to severing your optic nerve. I just don't have the knowledge to rebuild that many structures.” He says, shaking himself slightly. “I’m not even sure if the knowledge exists.”

“I had plenty of time to resign myself to it.” You say, as gently as you can manage. “I have lost nothing. Thank you, Marcoh.”

“I’ll… I’ll see myself out.” Marcoh says. 

Havoc rolls himself towards you from his corner. 

“Well,” he says, “Maybe Riza will take it easy on you with the paperwork?”

The silence weighs between the two of you, the man-made-whole and the man-made-less-whole-than-expected. You hadn’t truly believed that you would see again — something about blindness seems to resign itself to permanency, like some nights seem endless until you see that pink-bleeding sun-color — but you had never really believed that you wouldn’t see again, either. You really had just… tried not to think about it. You tried to pretend, if only to last the war. 

You have always been good at lying to yourself, but this is the first time that it has hurt you this much. 

“Are your legs all right?” You ask, and you are forever grateful that you can hardly hear the bitterness in your voice. 

He pops an ankle and laughs, booming. “As good as they’re gonna be. The doc said that the damage wasn't too bad, actually — Lust only severed part of my spinal cord. He just glued two bits together.”

“I’m glad, Havoc.” You say, and mean that much, at least. “You better not stay in that wheelchair for long. I expect to hear,” ( _see,_ part of you whispers, _see_ ), “you walking into my office soon.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Havoc says. “Chief…” He pauses, and you can almost feel him wishing for a cigarette, if only so he’d have something to do with his hands. “Are you gonna be all right?”

You don't still, per se — you are already frozen, and have been since your temporary diagnosis was made terminal. But all the bits of you that are still moving slide to a stop: your thoughts pause, your eyes stare fixedly at the wall. You can hardly hear your heartbeat thuds. 

You are arrogant. This is something you have always known; you could hardly have staged a coup without arrogance lending you the audacity. But now…

You never thought you were going to lose something, in this war. You survived Ishval, after all — there was nothing left to confront, no demons left to torch. You blinded yourself — and you will only laugh at blind jokes when they start being funny — to the truth: you never meant to walk away from the end of the world with more than a scratch. You were never meant to scar. 

“Eventually.” You say, finally. 

The world has had it out for you for a long time, after all. You open your eyes, and resign yourself to it. 

 

 

 

_The 47th division, stationed along the Drachman border, politely requests financial aid from Central Command in order to repair structural damage to the foundational pillars of the Fort Briggs caused by the events of the Promised Day, as well as additional manpower to hasten the process of reconstruction. This request requires approval from the Departments of Internal Repairs and…_

You run your fingers along the smooth nobs, small and vaguely plastic underneath your hands. The paper whispers as you run your hands along the Braille, crinkling gently as you move across the page.

You had thought, at first, that your blindness would be a severe detriment to your ability to serve in the military, or, at the very least, your ability to process paperwork. Riza, fortunately, disagreed, and commissioned an alchemist and several engineers to make a printing press to translate documents. With the use of a very clever internally-powered transmutation circle and a few weeks, they had fashioned a device that could scan and write documents fully in Braille that only had to be fed materials every once in a while.

It was a beautiful thing, really, and the illusion of normalcy is gave you was essential for you to resume your everyday life. 

You still felt ill-at-ease with the whole process, however. 

The purpose of the Braille printer was to allow you to pass in society — to, essentially, pretend as if you still could see. If life is a performance and the world is a stage, well, then — this is your role. 

You are — or, at the very least, you were — a connoisseur of theatre; you went to see shows with dates rather frequently. You aren’t particularly picky when it comes to art, but your favorite plays were those that felt _real_ , their immediacy tangible and heady in the theatre. Those plays were powerful because they hid their innards — the actors because their parts, the sets became the landscapes, and the audience became one with the world that they were being shown. Very few things remain magical once you are aware of the wires in the back. A transparent performance is less ethereal and more mundane, the bones too visible for the beauty of it to remain alive. 

Everyone has their facades, the things they wish everyone else to believe. Your performance — _Roy Mustang,_ a voice in your head intones, _in the role of “Sighted Man”_ —  must, then, be as transparent as they come, ruined by your cane leaning against the desk and the hunker of the Braille printer taking up too much office space. 

If the bones of your performance are always so present, then who on earth is going to believe it? 

Someone’s hand is on your shoulder, and you flinch so hard that you knock everything off your desk. 

“Shit, Boss!” Breda says, as your pens roll onto the ground, one after another. “Are you good?”

“…Fine, Breda.” You exhale slowly, and train your gaze on where you assume his head to be. “What is it?”

 _“_ You want to head out?” Breda asks. “The whole team’s going — there’s a barstool downtown that’s got your name on it.”

“Could you help me pick up my things?” You ask. “I am rather fond of some of those pens.”

Breda huffs out a breath and bends over, plonking your pens back into the metal cup you use to organize them on your desk.

“Boss…” Breda murmurs. “This is… Are you sure you don’t want to go out?”

“I’m quite sure, Breda.” 

You can hear him rubbing the back of his neck, and you can feel his eyes probing your face. 

“Okay, Boss.” Breda says, after too long of a pause. 

He pushes himself to a standing position with a grunt, and asks, “You need a ride home? You’re on the way.”

You wish if he was going to pretend to believe you, he could play the part a little more convincingly.

You stand up yourself, and close your eyes. 

“That would…” You say. “That would be nice.” 

Havoc gives a quiet affirmative hum from his desk, and everyone moves to leave.

Something thick and woolen jumps up in your throat, and you can feel the disappointment seeping into the room. 

“Wait,” you say, because you can't have this continue — because even if they don't believe you, you have to wish that they did. “There’s no reason for you to worry about me.”

“I’ll be all right.” You say, and you know from the way the room goes quiet that that line might have been the least convincing of all.

 

 

 

 

You all file into Havoc’s car, and you swing your cane onto your knees so it’ll fit with you in the backseat. 

Fuery bounces at your side, chattering lightheartedly about something that goes far over your head. The conversation is light and lilting, and the car buzzes with companionable energy.

You have to resist the urge to bury your head in your hands. 

They’re all so — well, you wouldn’t want to say anything so pedestrian as _whole_ , but they have all their pieces in place, at the very least. If they’re suffering, their suffering is _contained_ , a private matter not subject to scrutiny. 

You brought these people together for your cause. You built this team, that camaraderie. They’re as close to your people as you ever could hope to find.

You still don't feel as if you belong among them.

Havoc swings to a stop, and you assume that it must be yours. 

“Thank you for the ride, everyone.” You say, smilingly. “Have a good time for me.”

If they respond, you don't stay long enough to hear it. You step outside, and, with a few clacks of your cane on the familiar cobbled stone of your walkway, orient yourself enough to walk to the door. 

You walk inside and shut the door behind you, and maneuver to remove your shoes. You wiggle one ankle, and you place your hand on the wall for reassurance. 

— except, you don't quite find the wall, and you fall to the ground with a boom that hurts far more than it startles you. Your cane clatters to the ground next to your head, and you flinch away as best you can.

“ _Fuck_.” You murmur.

More loudly, you shout, “ _Fuck_!”

You brace yourself with your elbows, and you sit up as best you can, wincing as your knee pops with a painful twinge. 

“Fuck.” You say, once more, but this time, your house eats up the noise.

You reach across the floor for your cane, and you grasp at nothing for a few seconds, before you wrap your fingers around it. You push yourself roughly to a standing position, and feel for the wall. You walk along it until it bends, and then you walk along another wall, into you collapse into something soft and malleable that compresses under your weight. You think it’s your couch. You don’t particularly care — you have no intention to move for any length of time. 

You grab at the side table until your hands close around a bottleneck, and you grab at it until the cap pops off in your hands and whiskey is pooling in your lap in a slow dribble.

If life is a performance, and your couch is the stage, you can imagine the musical accompaniment, all heavy and thudding and low. You can imagine the way the audience would look around, askance. 

You wish that everyone could be a least a little courteous. You wish that, if you were going to put so much effort into a performance, that everyone could, at least, pretend to believe you.

You take a swig, and you savor the feeling of it going down too much to say that it burns.

 

 

 

 

“Congrats, General.” Fuhrer Gruman says, slapping your shiny new star into your palm. 

“It’s an honor, sir.” You say, and you only are lying a little. 

“Try not to topple me off my perch too soon, Mustang.” Gruman says, in that lilting way of his that hides his sharpness.

You’ve played this game before too, though — you could do it blindfolded. “I think I’ll leave all the rebuilding to you.” You say, and smile in a way that says _I’m deferring, I’ve lost, let the little blind man go play off alone._

Gruman laughs and clasps your shoulder in a grip slightly softer than you’d expect. “All right, Mustang.” He says. 

He walks away from you and you move to the side of the stage as well as you can manage. Your cane smacks against the white stone of the Central pavilion, and you hope it echoes in everyone’s ears. 

“Congrats on the promotion.” Ed says, off to the side. “Took you long enough.”

You are the youngest General in Amestrian history.

“Yes.” You say. “I’m inclined to agree.”

“Any plans now, then?” You hear a hard smack of shoes on the ground, as if Ed jumped off of something. 

“Nothing in particular.” You say. “I need to run by the office, perhaps — pick up some paperwork.”

“No, you don’t.” Ed says. “The team’s meeting up at the bar on Hepburn, and you’re coming.”

“Am I?” You respond. “I was unaware that we had made plans.”

“And that’s why they sent me to tell you.” Ed says. “Don’t think they haven’t noticed you dodging their attempts to get you to go out.” 

“I wasn’t being particularly subtle about it.” You say.  “Although I certainly didn’t think they’d send you as the messenger.”

“They thought you’d listen to me.” Ed says. “Well, it was more that you wouldn’t listen to them.”

“What I do is only my own concern.” You say, and something a little too close to anger for your comfort boils up in you. “As I’ve told my team, I’m quite fine, thank you.” 

“No, you’re fucking not.” Ed says, abandoning all of your restraint by barking out the words. 

Everyone around you goes silent and staring, and Ed huffs out a sigh. 

“Come on.” He grabs your wrist. “We shouldn’t be talking about this here.”

His strides are slightly longer than yours, so you half-stumble trying to catch up to him properly. If you had any damn idea of where he was headed you’d yank your wrist out of his hands, but you’re far too aware that there are quite a few places you can’t reach by yourself, so you don’t. He walks, and you follow, and that’s all there is to it.

He pulls you down to a bench somewhere and plops down with more panache than is really necessary. 

“Sit, Mustang.” He says, and you do, albeit a little bit grudgingly. 

You start, “I’m fine —”

“No,” Ed interrupts. “You’re not. We’ve been through this.”

“You can't expect me to be the same as I was.” You say, quietly. “None of us are, Edward.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Ed says, and his words are laced through with iron.

You inhale harshly, because you'd forgotten, somehow. You’d forgotten that other people had lost something, too. 

Everyone had their aches after the Promised Day, certainly — Havoc complained regularly of pain in his legs, and many soldiers under you are still recuperating from their injuries. Those losses, however, are less immediate to you, and they are less severe than a loss of sight. 

But an Edward Elric without alchemy is nigh-unimaginable. To imagine an Edward Elric without alchemy is to imagine a loss so drastic and sudden as to be unsurvivable. Alchemy is a thing of earth-shattering electricity, turbulence and will made manifest in chalk and dirt. It is the most powerful tool humanity possesses to shape its world — it is the closest thing to a god-maker among men. 

To imagine Ed — someone made of that same electric spitfire heat, fueled by that same beyond-world power — without it is unthinkable. Maybe that was why — well. Maybe that was why you didn’t think about it.

You’d forgotten that there was a reason that he didn’t show up at the office anymore. But maybe that had less to do with alchemy and more to do with how a part of you had thought he’d just — left you behind. Moved on with his life, like everyone else did. 

“I didn't mean —” You begin. 

“I know that.” Ed interrupts, and he suddenly sounds weary. 

“Are you… all right?” You ask, tentative. 

“I’m fine.” He says, and you can hear his sideways smile. “You see how fucking fake that sounds, Mustang?”

“I’m… I’m sorry.” You murmur. “I didn't intend to mislead anyone, or cause them concern. I just…”

“Needed some time alone?” He asks. “Yeah. I get that.”

He grabs you by the hand and yanks you up. “But you’ve spent enough time wallowing. Are you comin’ to the bar or not?”

You exhale, and you shoot him a smile as best you can. “I guess I am, then.”

“Good, Mustang.” He says. “Good.”

His hand finds your wrist again, to walk to the bar, and this time, you don't find yourself opposing it.

You walk together, and the silence is gentle between you for a few moments.

“Where are we going, anyway?” You ask.

“This dive that your team picked out.” Ed responds. “I actually haven’t been before, but Breda told me the address. It’s called — Odd Bear, or something? I’m not sure.”

“Oh.” You murmur. “I remember that place.” 

You had liked this bar, however-long-ago it was that you actually had the time to frequent bars on a regular basis. It wasn’t exactly classy, and it wasn’t exactly new — it had that sticky-dark lighting that clung to everyone in all of the wrong ways, and smelled like the headier parts of cigarette smoke. 

But it was quiet, as bars went. The leather seats had been ripped for so long that the stuffing was stained, and the electric lights were a seeping blue neon that made every other color blend together, but, as much as anything was, it was yours.

Or, at least, it had been. 

Ed pulls open the door and the two of you walk inside. 

“Hey!” Havoc shouts. “Glad you two made it. Ed, you didn't let him change out of that uniform?”

You feel your lapel, and the familiar gold braiding makes you curse — you never had the chance to change out of your uniform from the ceremony. 

“He looks fine.” Ed says breezily. “Just because you felt the need to change into civvies doesn't mean he needs to.”

The room goes quiet, and you become aware that he's still holding your hand. It’s not a bad feeling — his fingers are calloused on the ends, and his hands are smaller than yours. His hand is warm.

It’s not a bad feeling. 

He guides you to your chair and, with some nudging with your cane, you’re situated, and the conversations all start back up lively around you. 

“Hey.” Havoc says, and he grasps your shoulder firmly. “I’m glad you could make it out tonight. We were getting worried, ya know?”

“We should’ve sent Ed after you sooner!” Breda says with a laugh. “Would’ve saved us a lot of time!” 

“I think I would have come on my own eventually.” You say. “But… thank you, everyone.”

“A round of drinks on me?” You suggest, and the room explodes into joyful, uproarious noise. 

After tossing too much money on the counter, you start sipping a drink of your own. 

“General.” Hawkeye says, and, judging by the sound, drags a chair over to you. “You didn’t have to do that, you know.”

“I’m well aware.” You smile at an approximation of her location. “You all deserved it, really.” 

“I’m glad you’re moving forward, sir.” She says, and she sounds as contented as you’ve ever heard her. 

“…I’m glad you’re moving forward too, Riza.” You say, after a moment, because that’s what this is, isn’t it? Isn’t this just another chance, for both of you?

“I’m still never letting you out of my sight, sir.” She murmurs. “Some things aren’t meant to change, I don't think.”

“Take time for yourself, though.” You say. “Take Black Hayate out more often. Pick up a hobby. Find somebody. We’ve got the time, now.”

“Some things really are meant to change.” You say, and you hug her to you, as tightly as you can. “Thank you — for everything.”

“You’re welcome, sir.” She says, and she hugs you back just as fiercely. “I hope that you’ll do the same.” 

You smile into her shoulder, and it might be the alcohol, but you have to resist the urge to cry.

Maybe… maybe everything didn’t turn out the way that you hoped it would. Maybe there are some people that you failed, and maybe there are some ways that you failed yourself. 

But this is more than you ever could have hoped for, when you vowed to begin all of this — when you entered the military, when you wept for all of the lives you spilled into the sand. Everything is not as victory-tinged as you could have hoped, and the world is not as perfect as you once imagined it could be.

But it is your world now — in ways that it wasn't before. You still plan to become Fuhrer, and there are still wrongs for you to right and things for you to change, but you have time, now. You can stop, and savor everything. This is absolution — as much as either of you deserve. 

And perhaps you can no longer stop to see everything so clearly, but the roses are still yours to smell. You see no reason to be greedy. 

“I needed to stop, for just a little while.” You say, and now you’re mostly talking to yourself. 

“A moment to yourself, after everything stopped rushing past you?” Ed asks. “Yeah. I needed that too.”

“Oh?” You say, half in response to his question and half in shock to his sudden appearance. “I’m surprised. I never thought you'd voluntarily slow down. If I remember correctly, your favorite form of relaxation in the past was research.”

“Winry actually forced me to.” Ed chuckles. “She said I’d done too much to do anything else for right now, and she got sick of watching me pace. She actually confiscated all of the alchemy books we kept at Granny’s.”

“Winry?” You ask. “Not Al?” 

“Al’s too busy recovering to say much of anything, though he would’ve normally.” Ed snorts. “He’s not usually this self-involved.” 

“Has he checked everything off that list of his?” You ask. “The one that he was making of things to do when he got his body back?”

“Not even close.” Ed says, and his voice gets so bright you swear you have to blink off the afterimages. “Apparently he filled it out as a stress relief, so he ended up with something like 700 entries. He’s gotten… 300 done, I think.”

“What was on that list?” You marvel. 

“Al-stuff.” Ed laughs. “The first couple were stuff like petting kittens, or eating certain foods. It turned into a bucket list, after a while. He put down certain things he wanted to do when he could feel the challenge of it again. Certain things he wanted to see with his own eyes.” 

“Oh?” You ask, softly. “What is it that he wanted to see?”

“The fields in Resembool, in the fall, when all the flowers are dying.” Ed murmurs, just as quietly as you did. “The way the sunset gets too messy and bleeds on everything. The way the sky can't decide what color it wants to be.”

“Sometimes he tells me about how dark everything was at night.” Ed says. “When he had too many hours with nothing in them but him.”

“Are you trying to tell me something, Edward Elric?” You ask, and it’s hardly a question.

“I don’t know.” He says, and it’s hardly an answer, but he brings your hand against his face and smiles into the meat of your palm like it should be one anyway.

He moves your hand away and takes it in his once again, but this time, he holds you like he means it, and if he were any other person, or if this were any other night, you’d say that the way his hand feels in yours is familiar. 

But if it’s not that same feeling — well. It’s certainly something close. 

You were never one for guarantees, anyway.

 

 

 

 

You can’t read anymore. 

Well, obviously, but, specifically, you can’t read books. You can’t read _your_ books. 

You have a library. Your bookshelves span walls, and years — you’ve been collecting them since before you entered the military — and it’s not as if you can have all of them reprinted in Braille. 

And, on the face of it, you suppose that that’s not that big of a deal. If you miss a specific novel, you can purchase it somewhere — hell, you could even scan the pages at the office and have it printed that way, if you were so inclined. 

But, before, reading was an essential means of relaxation for you. When everything seemed heavier than you could bear, or your home got the wrong sort of quiet, you could pick a tome and exist elsewhere — somewhere where the world sighs into softness, like a golden, idyllic little farm-scape, with wheat stalks piercing the wind. 

Maybe it’s wrong to feel resentful, and you know it’s not healthy, but you’ve been robbed of that, now, and left with only the raging emptiness of your thoughts. 

 _Here’s the pencil_ , you think, because what other choice do you have? _Make it work._

Sometimes, when you are alone, you beat your fists against your home and _scream_ , and when the echoing finally settles into nothing, you eat up the silences with your eyes. You relearn yourself. You trace your hands down your body and don’t breathe enough at night. If you no longer can read, then you have time to be. If you no longer can escape, you have time to heal. 

When you were younger, you thought to heal was to forget — to simply never think about the things that broke you. You thought wounds only went so deep as memories, and that pain could be cut out and severed. 

But you’re not — you’re not severing anything. To _sever_ would imply to _cut,_ to _destroy,_ and you don't intend to break much of anything else. What you want is to allow those last remnants of loss to leave of their own volition. You want to loose your sorrows into a grey-tinged and turbulent sea — to cast those last boats adrift. 

And to let those boats drift past you, on this night of stormy seas — well. 

You need to let them go. 

 _“_ Are you all right, sir?” Riza asks. 

“I’m — I’m good, Riza.” You swallow. “Could I have a minute? I’m sorry to ask, just…”

“I understand, sir.” She says, and her voice hardly trembles. “I’ll wait near the car.”

You hear her footsteps by the crunch of the grass, until they fade away into nothing but the wind, echoing in your ears.

There are times when you don’t need your sight to imagine the world. You’ve seen movies before — you know how you look, standing in front of your best friend’s grave. You know that there shouldn’t be warmth, near the dead — that the sky should be drooping and grey, with cloud bellies brushing the back of your ear and raise your skin with their chill. The grass should be curling around the edges of your shoes, dying and desperate in the winter. 

Your breath turns to steam, and the cold nestles in the tips of your fingers. You breathe in, and feel the way that the winter tastes in your mouth. It tastes like a gun barrel, all metallic and gleaming. It tastes the way his knives did, in their creeping, subtle danger. 

“Get out of your head, Roy.” Maes says. “Haven’t you learned by now that it isn’t a great place to be?”

You cast your eyes towards the sound — uselessly, you know, but maybe the blind can see the dead and you’d hate yourself if you didn’t try. 

“Maes?” You whisper. 

You reach for him, but all you can grasp is dust. 

“Maes!” You shout.

Someone grabs your arm. You have to assume that it’s him — that no one is willing to take advantage of a blind man, reaching in the dark. 

“It’s all right, Roy.” Maes Hughes says. “I’m here.”

You don't quite collapse, but it’s a near thing. You pull him close to you, the dirt of the uniform he was buried in smudging in your hands. 

“And I’m not leaving, all right?” He says, and your whole chest seizes up. 

“I don't remember,” you manage, and then start over, because your heart is trying to beat in time with a dead man’s, and you can hardly stand the familiarity of it, “I don’t remember you being this cruel.”

He chuckles, and you can feel it rumbling through him. 

“I always was.” He says, and he gets closer, brushing your face with his hand. His skin is not quite clammy, and not quite cold, but he doesn’t feel human all the same. “You just didn’t want to see it.”

He kisses your forehead, all granite given shape. “You’ve always felt a little too much of everything.”

“That’s not for you to say.” You defend yourself, in a half-whispered murmur.

“Yes,” he says, “it is.” He kisses you. 

You savor it, even in its strangeness, and the way his lips don’t give against yours, and how his tongue tastes like knives, too. If beggars can’t be choosers — well. You’ve spent long enough begging. 

You break away, and try to take your breath back. “You left me for Gracia, Maes.” You say. _Let me bury you,_ you don't say. _I came here to leave you behind._

 _“_ Do you have anyone, Roy?” He asks, ignoring what you said, and you huff out a breath. You had forgotten about his mind — odd, considering that was what you loved him for. 

And damn him, for phrasing it that way. You have loved people — many people. When you dated during your time in the East, you fell in love over evenings, memorizing phone numbers scrawled onto wrists by staring at them for too long. 

But — have you ever _had_ anyone? Kept anyone close, with your nose in their hair, breathing in the morning and solidity and things that are not the war?

“Not…” Your voice comes out hoarse and tired, like you screamed all the things bursting inside your head, “Not quite.”

“What about Riza?” Maes murmurs. He shifts his weight, and suddenly you realize that you are standing on his grave. “She loves you, you know.”

“She doesn’t…” You start, “It’s not quite right, Maes. We wouldn’t…”

You turn to look at him as best you can, and you don’t think you manage to do anything beyond look into the distance. “We wouldn’t be good for each other.”

He chuckles, and it runs through you. “You already know everything I have to say, don’t you?”

“I —” You say, and then you stumble. “Wait, no, please don’t go — _Maes._ ”

“Tell Gracia that I’m sorry.” He says. “And send her flowers every once in a while, all right?”

He swallows, and touches the gravestone. “She likes begonias. She — she really likes begonias.” 

“I’ll remember.” You promise. You stop, and then your throat closes up, too full of all of things you told yourself you’d say to him if you got the chance. 

“I…” You choke, and all of your _I love you’s_ wither in your hands.

He holds your face in his hands. “It’s okay.” He murmurs. “I know.”

The wind swirls, cold and unforgiving, and you are alone again. 

“Sir!” Riza says, running towards you. “Sir! Are you —”

She slows, and walks the rest of way to the grave in silence. You take her hand and hold it, as tight as you can without hurting her. 

“I brought the flowers.” She says. “From the car.” 

“May I have just one, please?” You ask. She hands it to you, and you lay it on the top of the grave. 

“I’ll send the rest to Gracia.” You whisper to him, to whatever could be listening. “But you deserved one.”

You turn your back to the grave and walk. 

 

 

 

 

 

It is snowing again. 

You wrap up in yourself, coat providing little protection against the wet flurries dotting your face. You hide one hand in your pockets, and the other one feels numb against the metal of your cane. 

You stifle a yawn into your hand, and try to shrug off the sleep. The staccato beats of your cane on the pavement are all that is keeping you awake — thankfully, you don’t need to be all that awake for this. 

You’ve memorized your work route through steps. It’s 548 steps from your house, and then a right turn, after which you continue for 924 steps, and then a left turn, and 667 steps. Then, you’re at Central Command, after which it’s 74 steps from the lobby to a right turn, and 85 steps to your office. You are blind, yes, but you make do. 

You were terrified to venture out alone, at first. Of course you were afraid — the only reason that you’ve managed to stay alive this long is because you knew what you needed to be afraid of. You are wandering in places that never feel familiar, despite the number of times that you have visited them. You are more familiar with being lost than you ever thought you could be, while being able to see. Blindness certainly had its way to disabuse you of your delusions. 

You made a fool of yourself, when you first tried to walk. You stumbled into poles, into people — you dislocated your shoulder falling down a set of stairs. You’ve walked into traffic; you’ve knocked over trash cans. 

You sigh, and your breath coalesces into mist. 

“Good morning, sir!” The guard says, in front of Central Command. “How was the walk?”

“Quite refreshing, thank you.” You say, as you rub the feeling back into your hands. You continue the walk to your office, the clacking of your cane against the ground as comforting as it is irritating. You detest, sometimes, the audible reminder of your blindness; you cannot ever really escape awareness of it, but the cane brings it to the forefront of your mind. But the cane is also steady, and ensures that all situations are familiar. You will always be accompanied by the same _clack-clack_ sound, which can be comforting, although you make a point of never venturing to unknown spaces. You may not walk so freely anymore — all that you feel from unknown places is fear, and that, too, is in no way unfamiliar. 

You feel for the door with your cane, and you push it open gently. 

“Hello, everyone.” You say, although you’re fairly certain that it’s only Fuery here this early. You’ve made a point of coming into work earlier and leaving later, since your incident — rarely does anyone beat you into the office. 

Before, you were typically second-to-last, before only Havoc. Now, you likely no longer have the luxury of feigning laziness. The facade that propelled you to this position — that of an indolent, entitled, jack-ass with a sizable superiority complex and a penchant for womanizing to match — was no longer one that would be believed. That facade implied power. 

Very few people believe in your strength, these days. 

“Hello, sir!” Fuery and Falman chorus from the backroom, and you fail entirely to contain your smile. 

 

 

 

 

You bury yourself in paperwork, and the sleepiness that you thought you had abandoned with the cold outside revisits you with a vengeance. 

You rub your tired eyes and resist the urge to slam your head into the desk. You have work to do — even a blind man’s signatures have value these days.

A mug clinks next to you, and you train your eyes on the source of the sound. 

“Coffee.” Riza says. “You seemed like you needed some.”

You wrap your hands around the mug and let the scent flood the room.

“Thank you.” You say, and it comes out a little more gruffly than you intended.

“Just… take care of yourself.” She says, finally.  

She looks at you — you can imagine the way that her gaze has gone all sideways and weary — and it’s in moments like this you dare to consider what she is to you. What she was supposed to have been. 

You love Riza — you do. You love her in ways that you have never been able to describe to yourself; you love her in ways that you’re afraid of, almost, because you can’t quite untangle them from each other. You love her, because she is there — because she has always been there, and likely always will be; you love her because she is strong, and made of marble as you rip at the seams; you love her because she bears the worst of your sins deep in her skin, and you loathe yourself for being grateful that you do not have to carry all of that weight. You love her because you are sand-stripped and in desperate need of a confessional, and she is as close to a priest as you are liable to find. 

She took you, when you both got back from the war. You remember the way she looked at you — at the train station, at the office, at the remnants of the Hawkeye estate, when neither of you could breathe in anything but each other. She looked at you in that desperate, dying way that she had in the sand, when she was high in her watchtower as you burned below. She looked at you needy, like you were the last refuge she was likely to know. 

You remember nestling your hands in her hair, oils caking under your fingers. You remember brushing the circles under her eyes, and feeling the wrinkles that were not there before. You moved against each other, underneath the rotting blanket that didn't protect you from the blistering of the house you scarred her in. You felt her folds, her edges, the softness you thought she had done away with long ago, and she whispered, sand-stripped and aching, “Come on, come on,” in the low light like a prayer, like she wanted to take your hand and run you into the distance. You convulsed against her, and she held you, gently, with all of her strength. 

You remember that it was almost enough to ease your aches, to make you forget how blood soaked the boots propped at the door, but she wiped your tears off your cheeks once you finished. She sat, your head in her lap, the curve of her spine regal and her hair touching the back of her neck. She looked powerful and weary, like all of the gods you stopped believing in when they hurt the two of you. 

You remember that she looked older than she did when you left. You remember that she looked like the war. 

“This isn't going to work, isn’t it?” She had murmured, looking down at you. 

“Likely not.” You had whispered. “I’m glad, though — glad we tried.”

She had chuckled, low in her throat. “Do you think that we ever had a chance?”

You knew that you did. You knew, in that moment and all of the moments since, that the war ruined both of you. You knew that you were worth something together, once. 

“Not at all.” You had said. “But hope is for desperate men, and all that.”

She had pressed her forehead to yours and closed her eyes. “Thank you.” She had said. 

“You’re welcome.” You had murmured, hoarse and low and honest. “You’re — you’re welcome.” 

You break yourself out of your recollections and smile into your coffee cup. 

“I will.” You promise — now, for the future, for forever. “I will.”

 

 

 

 

 

You’re knee-deep in paperwork and down to the last dregs of your morning coffee when you hear a decidedly foot-shaped _bang_ , and, suddenly, your desk rattles with a boom. 

“Mustang!” Edward Elric says, and you nearly jump out of your seat. “Al kicked me out, and I don't feel like drinking. Wanna hit the town?” 

“Well, I’m flattered.” You say, after you recover from the initial jolt.  “But why ask me? I’m sure the team would be thrilled to ‘hit the town,’ as it were.”

“Cause I feel like it, Mustang.” He says, imperiously, which you suppose that you shouldn’t be surprised by. “You comin’ or not?”

“I suppose.” You sigh, and you make a show of getting up, popping your shoulders with a toss of your arms. “You’re lucky I was already done for the day.”

Ed snorts. “You’ve been done since 12, you ass. Don’t pretend as if you've had a long day.”

“What is it that you’ve been doing, then, that puts you in a position to judge?” You snark back, and you can hear your smile bleeding through your words. “To my understanding, you’re currently out of a job.”

“This and that.” Ed says, with a roll of his shoulders that you can only hear because of how many of his joints pop in response — how stiff _was_ he? “I’m trying my hand at cosmopolitanism. Al and I are learning Xingese together.”

“Well,” You say, and something you haven’t heard in a long time — something confident and glimmering and just so slightly heated —enters your tone. “If you’re so well-cultured now, how about we hit the new Xingese restaurant on Main? You can tell me more about your cosmopolitanism over dinner.”

“Not a bad idea, Mustang.” Ed says, and he places his hand on your arm gently. “I hope you know the way there.”

You still in reaching for your cane, for just a moment. “You do realize that you're asking the blind man for directions.”

“I’m absolutely hopeless when it comes to that sort of thing.” Ed says. “We’re better off following you than me.”

You giggle, and it comes out desperate, before you break into a full guffaw that echoes on deranged. Ed starts laughing too, then, in a gasping way that makes you even more hysterical.

“It’s gonna take us,” you say, between the contractions of your ribs, between wetness, “at least an hour to get there, at this rate.”

“I’ve got time to kill.” Ed says. “Do your worst.”

So you do. So you grab his hand and you drag him to someplace that’s tinged like the best parts of everywhere. You walk with him outside, and all the world’s warmth is enough to wash you mindless. 

For the past six years of your life, Edward Elric has been a fixed point, in the same way that the stars are old friends; in the same way that he’s always surprised you with some precarious bit of brilliance, and then looked at you with something ancient and untouchable, like the oldest depths of the sea. You have known Edward Elric, and you know his essence is something molten and tumultuous, like lava that will not condescend to lower itself to dirt. 

But this — even for all of these years of knowing, all those years of seeing — this is the first time that he’s felt inevitable. 

 

 

 

 

The next morning you slide into wakefulness, the way that a cracked egg sizzles and spreads out on a pan. You make the slow shift from dream-heady and lackadaisical to something sparking in the heat, twitching from the tension. 

You can only think of one reason why. 

You pick up the phone and punch in the Elrics’ number.

“That you, Mustang?” Someone says, and it takes a moment for you to realize that it’s Alphonse. His voice still has that same softness to it, but all of its coolness had bloomed into sunshine, with no lingering hints of metal. 

“Good morning.” You say, and you manage to swallow your surprise. “You sound well, Alphonse.”

“I’m doing pretty well, yeah.” Alphonse says, with a sheepishness that makes you smile. “I’m not the reason you called, though.”

You have to fight the urge to snort — Elric perceptiveness is going to be the death of you one of these days. “I wouldn’t put it that way, but… yes, essentially.”

“I haven’t seen Ed like this in a while, General.” Alphonse says, and his voice takes on a tinge more mischievous than you would like. “He’s spacing out, and he keeps clinging to the cats. Do you want me to put him on?”

You have to smile once more, in a way that’s too big for your mouth. You don’t necessarily want Ed to be off-balance, but all the same, it’s… nice. 

It’s good to know that he’s been impacted, too. 

“Yeah, go ahead.” You say. “I can wait.”

Alphonse sets the handset down with a soft _click_ , and, after a few seconds of silence and a caterwaul likely from one the cats, Ed picks up the phone with an audible huff. 

“Mustang.” He says. “What’re you doing, calling this early?”

Time has less meaning for you, these days, considering that it’s largely accessible through visual mediums. You have a grandfather clock that goes off on the hour, though, and it had said it was after 11…

“I may not have work to keep me on schedule today,” You snicker. “But I know it’s after 11. How late you usually wake up?”

“I’m unemployed – I am bound by no man.” Ed says, breezily. “There’s no reason for me to keep a schedule, so I don’t.”

“But anyway – don’t think I didn’t notice you dodging the question.” Ed says. “You got a reason for calling?”

You don't quite blush, but you’d be lying if you said you didn’t feel a rush of heat in your cheeks. “I just thought that we could go out, again. Since it’s the weekend, and all.”

“It’s not like I’ve got anything else to do.” Ed says, and he largely sounds unaffected, but you can hear something like happiness in the way he shapes the words. “Wanna hit the town? We could do dinner again, if you wanted.”

“Sure.” You say. “We could meet by the square near Central Command. See you at 5?”

“See ya, Mustang.” He says, and he hangs up with a soft _click._

You place the receiver down with a grin, and resign yourself to five hours of waiting. 

 

 

 

 

 

You show up too early. 

Specifically, you show up twenty minutes ahead of time, because your can feel the nervousness fermenting in your bones, until your fingers can't help but twitch frantically. 

Specifically, you grasp you knees in your hands and try not to think of how you must look, collapsing in on yourself on a park bench. 

You don’t have any idea as to why you’re this nervous.

Maybe it’s because this the first time you’ve initiated anything. Maybe it’s because this isn’t happenstance, or coincidence. Maybe it’s because this isn't something that you can deny, anymore. 

You haven't had a relationship with a man since Maes — you haven't ever had a public relationship with a man at all. Today is a turning point. 

 _We are all going forward._ You think, with a finality, and you close your eyes, and let the wind sweep through you. _None of us are going back._

“Roy!” Ed shouts, and you turn your head towards the origin of the sound. 

“…Roy?” You question, and it almost comes out as a croak, because you don’t think you’ve ever heard him say your given name. 

Ed stills and then, with a characteristic decisiveness you’ve always admired, grasps your hand once again. “Roy.”

“All right, then, Ed.” You say, and his name tickles the back of your throat. “Any plans?”

“I wanted to get Al some things.” He says. “He’s very picky about textures right now, and I wanted to get him some soft stuff. Blankets, and shit.” 

“Sounds good to me.” You say, and he leads you towards the shopping district. 

“How’s it been, Roy?” He asks, briskly. 

“I’m… all right. I’m getting better.” You say, surprising yourself with your honesty. Maybe it’s something about Ed, that pulls truths from between your lips like silk. 

“Are you?” He says, and his voice opens up like a smile. “That’s good. That’s real good.”

You walk together silently, for few moments. He’s holding your hand again, which, at this point, shouldn’t be all that strange, and it’s not, really. But it’s still significant. It still makes even these silences headier than you’re accustomed to. 

“What have you been doing lately?” Ed asks. “Not that I expect you to have all that much free time on your hands.”

“I go on a lot of walks.” You say. “When I’m not being held at the office for twelve-hour stretches, that is.”

“Isn’t the workload supposed to lessen the higher up the ladder you go?” Ed snickers. “The lackeys work ’till sunup and the brass goes home at 5?”

“Surprisingly, rebuilding a country takes some work.” You say, with only a hint of dryness. “We’re having to completely reforge diplomatic relations with Drachma, and the press is demanding stricter government monitoring of alchemical research. Plus, Grumman is attempting to make amends to the Ishvalans, and… well. You get the idea.”

“Who do you have representing the military in talks with the Ishvalans?” Ed asks. “I don’t think you would be very well-received.”

“Miles and Scar are spearheading the efforts.” You respond. “It’s worked out fairly well thus far.” 

“Does he still go by Scar?” Ed wonders. “Didn’t he just – stop responding to it, after the Promised Day?” 

“Well, yes.” You say. “But he didn’t pick a new name, and while we can speak to him conversationally without some form of nomenclature, the military, unfortunately, is rather fond of official documentation of diplomatic envoys.” 

“You coulda just submitted all paperwork with him involved blank.” Ed snorts. “It’d technically be right.”

“You know,” You say. “I think you’d have a better idea of how bad an idea that is if you ever actually did your paperwork properly.”

“Hey!” Ed projects with a laugh. “I completed all of it!”

“Yes.” You say, dryly. “I specifically remember one report that was entirely incomplete other than a targeted ‘I did everything you asked, you fuck.’ written in the margins.”

Ed snorts. “I was 12! It was the military’s fault for trusting me with paperwork in the first place.”

“Alchemical prodigies should be preternaturally gifted in all other fields.” You say, nose in the air. “Actually, I should probably talk with Gruman about allowing minors into the state alchemist program. I don’t think the military could take anyone else of your ilk.”

Ed doesn’t respond, for a second, and your first impulse is to look over at him. You want to roam his face, measuring the crannies of his smile and the contours of his cheeks. You want to see whatever feeling that is folding his brow, to measure the silence by the lines of his eyes. You don’t want to have to be told that something is wrong. 

But instead, you stop walking, and grab his wrist a little tighter. 

“…Ed?” You say, softly. 

“I’m being silly.” Ed says, quickly, his words hitting the ground with the cadence and weight of heavy raindrops. “I’ve had months to get used to it – the same amount of time that you’ve had, but…” 

“…Has it been hard?” You ask, just as quietly as before. 

“Sometimes it hasn’t been.” Ed says, and then the words start flowing. “Sometimes it’s been easy. I don’t need alchemy for so much, and I can still research it with Al. I haven’t even really lost anything.”

“But…” You murmur. 

“But I miss it.” Ed responds, and his voice dips down to a barely-audible rumble. “I just… I just miss it.”

“I told you, earlier,” You say. “That I go walking a lot. And it’s hard. It’s a lot harder than it used to be.”

“But I can do it.” You say, and you try to infuse your words with meaning — with enough finality that he’ll never doubt himself ever again. Maybe with enough poignancy that you’ll fully believe it yourself.  “I miss sight,” You say, softly, with something in you ringing deep. “But I never needed it.”

And maybe — maybe you do believe yourself. You’re not sure what you wouldn't trade to see the sunlight sloping down Ed’s spine, lighting him to flame. But it’s true, that you never needed sight.

You have too many things, now, to be left wanting for much. 

You reach for Ed’s hands and weigh them in yours. The left one runs scarred underneath your fingers, with hardened, curling flesh worming down the length of his palm. The right one feels like a sweet sort of softness, thinner than the other hand, but mountainous with the bony ridges of his knuckles. 

Maybe this isn’t anything — maybe this is only in your imagining, something that ought to stay in the quieter realm of dreams — but the way his hands sit in yours feels like something: something maybe like a promise.

Something maybe like hope. 

“I’m going to try something that may or may not turn out well.” You say. “Feel free to stop me if I get carried away.”

You take your hands out of his and reach towards him until your hands touch the soft skin of his neck. You slide them slowly upward, until they rest on his cheekbones. He puffs out a breath. “Keep takin’ your time, Mustang.” He murmurs, and his voice just barely tremors. “Come on.” 

You smile wider than you think you have in a long time, and kiss him as lightly as you can bring yourself to. 

He doesn't respond, for a second, and then he _does_ , and he washes over you like a storm — terrifying and ferocious and clean. 

You pull away, and you can’t help but tip your head up to gasp up into the sky. 

“You _dumbass_.” He says, breathy and with feeling, and he presses his face against your cheek. You can feel his smile, all long and jagged and blinding. 

You may miss sight — may want to see that the way he smiles is as bright and burning as you imagine it to be — but you don’t need it, really. This is painful, certainly — but it is enough.

It is everything, it is everything — it is enough. 

 

 

 

 

 

You do not know if you are awake. 

You have, certainly, that crescendoing awareness that’s characteristic of wakefulness. The fullness of the world is building in the corners of your eyes, and you can feel the crumple of the sheets in your hands.

You know better than to trust that, though. You’ve had this dream before. 

Before you were blinded, (and you will not shudder thinking that, because you have had time to adjust, and you are not so weak as to flinch at your own thoughts) waking was an entirely different sensation, dominated by the colors of the morning painting your walls. Now, you only have the dawning realization of wakefulness to inform you, and it has failed you often enough. 

Some of your dreams start in the blankness of black, like your mornings, and burst into full color. Some of your dreams are monochrome; some have colors so vivid that you can't remember them having been real. Your nights sneak and cower in the dark, then explode triumphantly into color, as if they were never hiding at all.

Today, though, you do not think your dreams are lying to you. 

There’s a chill that’s far from usual — a chill that coats your body until your thoughts are creeping and frozen. You move to stand, and you hit a form — frigid and curled up on itself. You move your hand across it, and feel the telltale bump of a kneecap, and the shocking cold of metal. 

_Ed._

His body is _freezing —_ more reminiscent of an ice sculpture than a person. You move up closer to him, and it feels like you’re pressing up against steel, like Ed isn’t human — like he’s never been human in his life. He feels like one of those city hall statues, all foreboding and regal, a monument meant to last until the world burns. He feels like his steel parts are the weaker bits.

You twist yourself up in the sheets and grab the metal of his leg. It stings, like an ice slab, and you can almost see the mist of your breath in the cold. 

“Oh.” You say. “My heating’s gone out.”

He rustles awake, and you can hear the crackle of his spine as he stretches. “Jeez, Mustang. This how you treat all your dates?”

“Unfortunately." You respond. “Things have a tendency to go wrong around me. I’m afraid you’ll simply have to get used to it.”

“Get used to it?” He smiles, and slides up next to you. He’s cold, but so are you, so you press up fully against his side. “Are you suggesting a part two? Think your luck’ll be better next time?”

You certainly hope so, but a little part of you says _no, never —_ says _he’ll never make it around me,_ says _he was never meant to be cold and he’s already starting to freeze_ — but you’ve never gotten anywhere listening to yourself, so you turn your head towards his and pray that you’ve come close to meeting his eyes. “I doubt it. How did last night go, anyway? I can't seem to remember much of it.”

He moves closer, and _damn,_ automail toes are cold. “After we got Alphonse some stuff, we came back here and got sloshed over my research.” He snorts, his face buried in your shoulder. “Pretty good date, all things considered.”

“It sounds like you’re up for round two, then.” You say, as smoothly as you can manage while attempting not to fist pump under the sheets. “Since when have you ever let a little bad luck stop you, anyway?”

He giggles like a wind chime, and you think of storms. “You’ve got a point, there. There’s this little Cretan place right near the office, off of South Haven. Meet me there tomorrow?”

“I’ll see you then.” You say, and you can’t help but smirking, just slightly. There’s nothing wrong with a little indulgence every once in a while, you think — you’ve spent too long waiting to dream of abstinence.  

He laughs, bigger and brighter than you expected. “You dumbass.” He says, and suddenly the bed dips and his lips are on yours, thin and chapped. He applies a little wet pressure unevenly, and he missed your mouth a little, so it hits just off-center. “No, you can’t.”

He stands, slips his clothes on quickly, his struggle with his pants narrated by the _clink_ of his automail on your floors. You imagine that he’s made an awful mess of the hardwood. You can't quite bring yourself to care.

He slides on his coat with a jingle of metal, and you can almost see the sloppy salute you’re sure he fires off at the foot of the bed. “I’m off to find some place warmer. Later, Roy.” 

He says your name slowly, carefully, like he’s trying to savor the way it tastes. You’re smiling so hard you can feel it stretching your skin, and you’re sure it looks horrific. You can’t help yourself, though. You never could, really. 

“Later, Ed.” You say. “Make sure not to hit your head on the doorframe on your way out.”

You’re almost completely certain that he shoots you a middle finger, but the door shuts anyway, and suddenly, you are alone again. 

The silence is familiar, and pressing, but the way your heart thumps in your chest is new. It’s bloody and aching, and you want to walk to its beat until it’s familiar. _One, two._ It says, rushing. _Go._ It says, rushing. 

You throw on a jacket and rush out the door, slamming it behind you. “Ed!” You shout, into the blankness, cold and swirling on your skin. It’s snowing, soft and impermanent, and you can feel it melt against you.

You imagine the way he turns around, his hair and jacket rippling color in the white and wintry cold. “You dumbass!” He yells. “Can’t you wait a day?”

 _No,_ your heartbeat says, thrumming and sure. _You are brilliant, and beautiful, and beyond all else. I am done with such mortal things as waiting._ “Never!” You shout, echoing across the distance. “I’m afraid that I’m here to stay!”

And the world is quiet and echoing, all snow fields and silent purity untouched by blood and war, because he is laughing, brighter than anything you ever could have seen. 

 


	2. The World Machine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You just gotta believe, you know? World goes round, people get old; there’s gotta be an engine in there somewhere. 
> 
> I love you — that’s all I’ve got. That’s all that I think this is. L-O-V-E. Natural as aging — natural as the engine roaring, as the long highway, as never seeing the end of the road.

You and Ed start dating with a speed that really shouldn’t have surprised you. You both were impatient, but comparing your degree of impatience to Ed’s is analogous to comparing… Which is to say… Well.

“When are we gonna have sex, you old fart?” Ed asks, one day after work, when you’re nestled next to him near your fireplace.

You choke on your coffee. “I beg pardon?”

“You heard me.” He says, entirely unapologetic to how he nearly gave you a stroke. “I’m young. I’ve got needs.”

His voice grows a edge, playfully feral in a way that only he can manage. “And I doubt you've gotten much recently. From the way dating has been going, the Casanova stuff has got be rumor-only.”

“I’ll have you know,” you say, in your haughtiest voice, “that not a single rumor concerning me has been exaggerated. The Central rumor mill prides itself on supplying accurate information.”

“Really?” Ed says, and you don’t have to imagine what his face looks like. “What about the rumors of you being an easy lay?” He leans against you, and suddenly he’s pressed far closer than you expected.

He breathes against your lips. “Have they been exaggerated?”

Since you’re keenly aware of where his body is at the moment, it’s easy enough to pick him up and wrap his legs around your waist, and kiss the words right out of his mouth.

You walk as quickly as you are able to the bedroom, thankful that, at the very least, you have your bearings in your home. He rolls onto the bed, and shimmies out his clothes while you struggle with your shirt buttons.

“Lemme help.” Ed says, seeing your difficulty, and he frees you from your shirt’s confines quickly.

You stand before him, shirtless, and he falls back on the bed onto his elbows.

You are not self-conscious of your appearance — what, exactly, would be the point, considering that you have no means of correcting it?

You know you are in your 30’s, and you know that you have scars running down your body, your back pockmarked with bullet wounds and your side bursting into swollen tissue from where Lust impaled you. You know that you often miss a few places when you shave, and that your hair is often slightly askew.

You also know that Edward Elric has a metal rods implanted in his shoulder, and scar tissue circling his arm. You know he lost his leg, and he has scarring all around his port. You know that you enlisted him into the military when he was 11, and that he’s been fighting for years — been fighting since he was irascible and burning, willing to give himself up to repent for his sins. You know that you haven’t seen all of his scars.

You know he will not judge you for yours.

You move onto the bed and reach for his body, and he reaches back for you. Your hands situate themselves around his ribs, and you run your fingers along the valleys of his bones.

He gasps and kisses you, nestling his fingers in your hair with a vengeance. He pulls _hard_ , and you find yourself gasping too, your mouth open and vulnerable for him to push himself against you.

You abandon his mouth and move down the rest of his body, mapping all that you cannot see with your mouth and your hands. You nip the inside of his thigh, tonging circles into his skin, and his breathing picks up, going lightning-fast and sky-high as he presses his face into your shoulder.

He moves from your grasp and returns the favor, and suddenly you are breathing hard, and you are almost overcome. The whole world feels resplendent, and there’s enough heat to make your skin swell into sapphires, to make you glimmer underneath his hands. You push back into the sheets as he tongues bits and pieces of you until all you can do is feel — until there’s nothing left of you but the feeling, and the way your body trembles like it’s melting.

He slips a condom on and moves behind you, and you have always been a glutton for all the wrong things, because the pain is as jewel-toned as everything else. He grunts, and _shifts_ , and suddenly the heat blooms up in you full, like cream in coffee, whiting you out until you can’t do anything but shudder. He moans with you, and you both fall backward into the bed, all tacky-slick and spent.

You lie together, familiar in the silence, before you say, “Well, I suppose that went well.”

He presses his face against your chest and _beams_.

 

 

The next day you roll into the office comfortably late, with a cup of coffee and a feeling of contentment so strong that it overpowers all else. You shrug off the morning chill with an easy smile; you don’t care that you forgot some of your paperwork at home. You don’t think anything could slow you down, these days.

You walk towards you office, blissfully cheerful.

“…Really didn’t think you’d be the type he’d go for, boss.” Havoc says, unaware that you’re in earshot. “Then again, he did always have a thing for blonds…”

You furrow your brow, and walk towards the door as quietly as you can manage.

“True, true.” Breda says. “Didn’t you and Falman make a chart or something, of the defining characteristics of the girlfriends he stole?”

Ed cackles. “What’d he go for, usually? I wanna know if he _really_ went out of left field for me.”

Oh.

Oh, _no_.

“The General prefers taller women.” Falman says. “He rarely expressed a preference for body type or facial structure, although he did seem to have an inclination towards longer hair.”  
“Now it all makes sense!” Havoc exclaims. “Although you've had your hair growing out for a long time, boss.”

“Oh my god.” Breda snorts. “I hope he hasn't had a preference for blonds with long hair for _too_ long, then.”

“Nah.” Ed says. “We talked about that. It’s been a recent thing for both of us. You think I’d be dating him if it were anything else? Although, he did seem awfully ready to go farther…”

Your reputation can take no further battering.

“Gentlemen,” you say. “As entertaining as your conversation seems to be, perhaps we ought not to hold it at work.”

“Ah, go take the piss.” Havoc says. “You procrastinate worse than I do.”

He turns his head towards the back. “Isn’t that right, Riza?

“That may be true.” Riza intones from the filing cabinets. “But you all seem to be equally guilty at the moment.”

“Aw, give us a moment!” Havoc says, swinging in his chair. “We were just getting to the good part! Isn't that right, General?”

“I doubt that any part of this conversation can be called ‘good’ by standard convention.” You say, only slightly exaggerating your reaction. “And if you insist on besmirching my good name, I want no part in it.”

“Stop being a dick, Mustang.” Ed breathes into your ear. He kisses you on the cheek, quickly, and steps back, proud of his handiwork. You can feel a blush rushing up your cheeks, faster than you can tamper it down.

Havoc cackles, and Breda contributes with a wolf whistle. Someone is clapping. You are a merciful overlord, so their deaths will be swift.

“I guess that answers some questions about how you two got together!” Breda says. “Ed, good for you! Although I’m still not sure how you manage to persuade him to abnegate his throne of ‘heterosexual in chief.’”

“It wasn't too hard, all things considered.” Ed says. He bumps your hip. “In fact… It was easy enough that I can’t help but wonder if I wasn’t your first dude-friend.”

“Dude-friend?” Havoc snorts. “That’s what they’re calling it these days?”

“Shush.” Ed says. “Boyfriend sounds… wrong. He's all refined and shit. It just doesn't fit right.”

“So dude-friend is better?” Breda mutters.

“All refined men,” you say, ignoring Breda, “are hiding some sort of depravity.”

“Are they really?” he says, and god, you can hear his smile, so sharp that it looped back around again to soft. “And you, Mr. Mustang?”

“Mr. Mustang was my father,” you say, although you have no idea if that’s the case. “Roy will do just fine.”

“Although about the depravity,” you smile, as rakishly as you can manage when your heart is thundering in your ears, “I suppose you’ll have to find out.”

“Oh, get a _room_.” Breda says, teasing and bright, and you can’t even bring yourself to mind, what with the way that Ed laughs.

 

 

“Hey,” Ed murmurs, as you curl next to each other near the fire. “Did the conversation at the office bother you?

“It’s… all right.” You say. “I don’t really mind them knowing. I’d… prefer to keep this quiet, though. From the public, at least?”

“You really think that’ll be a problem?” He leans against you, and you wrap an arm around him. “I mean… I know it will be. I just… I don't know.”

“You want to tell people?” You say, wry. “Shout it from the rooftops? Stamp your name on my forehead? Get me a collar?”

“Yeah, that.” He says, not even bothering to refute you. He presses his smile against the back of your neck.

“Don’t think that I didn’t notice you dodging that question at the office.” He murmurs. You can feel your neck hair rise from his breath.

“What?” You ask. “Have I had a dude-friend before?”

He snorts. “I like that word, shush. But — yes. That one.”

“You really should be able to guess.” You say. “I was never very good at hiding it.”

He goes still, for a moment. He exhales, slowly, and whispers, “Maes?” The word comes out small and cramped, like he’s afraid to give it space.

“Yeah.” You say. You tuck the blanket around your toes. “Maes.”

“While you were in Ishval?” Ed asks. “Or before?”

“Before.” You say. “At training camp. We were bored, and we both needed a warm body. It wasn’t meant to be anything more than that.”

“Yeah” Ed says. “I get that.”

It’s your turn, now, to get small and silent. “Did you… did you have someone? Winry?”

“Nah.” He says. “We fight too much for it to be worth doing. I love her, but — no. It was Ling.”

You laugh, just a little bit. “The Emperor of Xing? That Ling?”

“Shut up.” Ed says, smilingly. “Al and Win made enough fun of me for it. Greed… made his needs known, and there’s not much to do out in a forest.”

You let out a full-on laugh now. “Isn’t this when Alphonse didn't know where you were? He was looking for you, and you were having a grand ol’ time with your dude-friend?”

“Shut up!” He says, a bit louder, which you take to mean that you were right, and that makes you laugh until you can hardly breathe. He finally sticks his lips on yours and swallows your laughter with a careful movement of his tongue. He kisses you open, chaste and slow, and you lie there with him, the heat of the fire causing sweat to bead on your skin.

He scoots away from you and shakes his head, his braid skimming your cheek. “My port hurts like a _bitch_ when it gets cold like this.” He says. “Massage it.”

“I’m a personal masseuse, now, is that right?” You snort. You brace your hands in the hot stone and push yourself up next to him. “You’re going to have to tell me where to massage.”

He huffs and places his full automail leg in your lap, which — ow. You grab his heel and place the bulk of his leg on the stone adjacent to you, and reach for his port.

You start rubbing circles right near the rim, probing at knotted scar tissue. “Is this all right?”

He snorts. “I’d say so, yeah.”

You sit there silently for a while, the rumbling of the fire filling the space quite nicely. It’s very comfortable, the whole situation — the way his skin, roughly-hewn like a statue out a cliff face, feels in your hands, the wine glass resting next to your thigh, the way his eyelashes flicker against your forearm as he fights off sleep. You’re very comfortable. You weren't sure that you did comfortable.

He yawns, thick and contented. “Hey, Mustang.” He says. “You got any hobbies?”

You want to laugh, at the pitiful conversation starter, but you can’t, really. You’ve been dating him, sure, and you’re at ease with each other. You don’t really know him, is all; it’s good to know that he’s been wondering about you too.

“Not… especially.” You say. “Not anymore.”

“What were they?” He asks. “And what stopped you?”

“You saw the piano, in the foyer.” You say, and you smile a little — not because it feels good, the longing seeping through you, but because you could hardly expect to get over it otherwise. “Did you think I was so pretentious that I just had a piano that I couldn’t play?”

“Shut up.” He says, kindly but quietly. He presses his face against you arm. “Can you still? …Play, I mean?

“I haven't tried.” You say, and, in a moment of candor that surges past your lips, you murmur, “I’m afraid to.”

He’s silent for a moment, chewing on your words. And then he says, “Did you know that I knitted? Before I lost the arm?”

“You… don’t really seem the type.” You say, but you’re only a little surprised anyway.

“Yeah.” He says. “Mom did it, and she thought it was a good skill to have, so — I knitted.”

“Do you still?” You ask.

“I couldn’t, really.” He says. “Right after the surgery. Your fine motor skills are shot to all hell for a while… And metal’s never real good with the delicate stuff.”

“And now that I’ve got the arm back,” He says, almost laughing. “I’ve forgotten.”

“Do you miss it?” You ask. “Or is it because…”

“I’m afraid to try it again?” He asks, smiling. “Got it in one.”

“I still listen to classical music, sometimes.” You say. “I go to the orchestra rather often.” _And I sometimes tap out the notes on the lengths of my thighs,_ you don't say _, and the music is so beautiful that people never ask why I’m crying._

“How about you take me to see it, at some point?” He asks. And then, — not shyly, because Edward Elric could lock gazes with the sun and never look away, so he could not be as hesitant as he sounds, with his fingers laced in your sleep shirt — he says, “Or you play for me?”

You grasp the edge of the fireplace, as it curves beneath your hands.

You can’t deny having thought about it. There are days when you run your hands across the piano lid, the pain familiar but still fresh enough to make your fingers twitch; there are days when all that stops you from loosing your sorrows with spring-floating concertos is the little mantra that says _what if I can’t — what if I mess up this last damn thing I have that’s worth keeping?_

You cast your gaze away from him, and the room returns to silence.

“…I want a scarf.” You say, quietly.

He laughs, and it is not quite joyous, but almost. It is a segue to joy — a promise, a potential you’ve just begun to tap. “You got yourself a deal, fucker.” He says. “I’ll even let you pick out the colors.”

He giggles, and suddenly, you realize. “You’d better actually knit the colors I ask for. If you gift me some green and orange monstrosity and I wear it in public —”

He cackles outright, and says, “It would be so fucking great — it’d be an emperor’s-got-no-clothes situation, but instead you’d be wearing the ugliest scarf known to man and you wouldn't know.”

“ _You little shit_.” You hiss as well as you can manage around your laughter. “Come here!”

He laughs and inches away from you, scooting along the length of the fireplace. You fasten your hands around him and pull him close, and, with minimal grumbling, he settles beside you, nestled against your chest. His hair tickles your nose. The laughter settles in you, wriggling its way into your ribs, until all you can feel as a quiet contentment.

He acquiesces to your attempts to cuddle far longer than you would have imagined, before cracking his jaw and sitting upright. “We’d better move to your bedroom.” He says. “Sleeping on stone… I've tried it. It’s not great.”

“Recent research suggests sleeping on hard surfaces may actually increase lumbar support.” You respond, before standing up yourself.

“Recent research can kiss my lumbar.” He says, gallivanting to the stairs and swinging on the bottom banister. “I’m not fucking up my back because some military toady got paid to promote those hard-ass military beds.”

“Maybe they're going for a rebranding?” You suggest. “The Amestrian Military: a one-way trip to a new you?”

He giggles. “After our intensive programs, you won't recognize yourself!”

“You get to travel to fantastic locales,” You say. “Work on that tan; the ladies _love_ a man who knows how to handle his gun!”

“Oh my _god_.” He says, collapsing back into your bed. “You clearly need sleep. You’ve lost it.”

“Yeah, probably.” You smile, and fall into bed behind him. You press your lips to the back of his neck. “…I guess I’m the big spoon?”  
“Fuck off, Mustang.” He says, fondly, and wow, if your heart doesn’t start thumping like it’s about to burst out of your chest.

You nestle your fingers in his hair and try your best to sleep, over the sounds of his breaths and the hummingbird-race of your heartbeat sound. You’re not sure how you manage, but you do, and you slip down into the quieter depths of dreams.

 

 

You open your eyes, and there is light.

It is blindingly white. You blink quickly, trying to adjust to the room, and it swells out in front of you. It is without boundary, emptiness stretching endlessly, except for a door.

The Gate stands high above you, iron-wrought and twisting.

“Truth?” You call, because there is no other place that this could be, and you aren't likely to forget the last thing that you ever saw. “Why I am here? Truth!”

“They busted this joint a while back.” Ed says, behind you. “There’s nothing left here but us.”

He extends his hand, a landline in a world made of nothing.

“Are you coming?” He asks.

You swallow a yes and an of course and an always and nod at him as best as you can.

He grabs your arm in affirmation and takes you, and you walk through the swirling might of memory, all mystic cords and scar tissue, until you reach a darkened room, lit by candles and glimmering expectations.

You look over, and a young Ed says, “Are you ready?” while his blood drips from his finger.

Something shocks from the blood and eats the light whole, and Ed is screaming; his body is in pieces and he is screaming like a meteor shower, red and speeding and dying. He ties a bandage around what’s left of his body, and a creature moans in the center of the circle, whistling pain through a chest cavity that never closed, and Ed screeches, “Give him back!” like a command, like he never had any other choice.

He pits his will against the world, and he wins, and he lives, and Riza says, “I’ve never seen anyone look so defeated,” and she's more correct than she has any right to be.

“Get out of that.” Ed chastises, and he pulls you out of the memory back to the dimly-lit room with wooden floors and chalk stains where you first saw him.

You look over, and you realize the tragedy of your blindness all over again.

He’s grown, now, and _god_ , he’s so gorgeous — all streamlined ponytail and sun-smolder, with two matching arms and a pink starburst scar on his right shoulder.

He meets your eyes dead-on, and his glimmer with sun-chariot majesty and the rise of morning stars. Your breath catches; you think of when he was younger, and how he was still brilliant enough to wound, but was totally, utterly wrong. You think of how he always compared himself to Icarus, and that he was always so determined to make himself seem mortal.

You don't disagree, with much of the idea — you agree entirely that he ought to have wings. You can see the molten wax-drip in his eyes.

You just don't think that he’s mortal. You just don't think he’s ever been anything other than imperious and capricious and terrifying, and made of more wondrous stuff than flesh and bone.

 _The great and the terrible, always intertwined._ You think. _God, he doesn't even look human anymore._

“Roy.” He says, and you don’t quite falter. You feel iron slipping into your spine, just enough for you to stand up straight and meet his eyes again.

“You wanna dance?” He asks.

You cast your gaze around the room — you look at the remnants of the transmutation circle on the ground, at the stain in the center of the floor. You see a suit of armor.

“This is…” You whisper. “Here?”

“I’m sure.” Ed says.

You reach for his hands tentatively, because you haven’t touched anything yet and you’re not should if everything won’t just melt away if you do. You’re familiar with his hands — still slightly smaller than yours, with long and sturdy fingers. You swivel your finger over the meat of his thumb.

He starts to hum something. It’s something soft, and gentle, that makes you think of the way the wind makes the world sway.

You look at the dark stain on the floor. “Your mother?”

He stops humming to follow your gaze. “We couldn’t get that stain out of the wood. There's a reason we burned the place down.”

He resumes humming and you let him, content to watch the candlelight play tricks on his skin.

He finishes his song, and says, “She used to sing that to us. She’d hold us and look out to the fields.”

He shrugs. “I used to think that she just loved nature, but now… It just feels like she was looking for something.”

“Your father, maybe?” You ask.

“No.” Ed responds. “Well, maybe a little. But she just seemed to be… _longing_ for something. Something beyond her.”

“I wonder what that’s like.” You murmur.

“Yeah,” he says, softly. “I wonder.”

You look up at him, and his gaze is on you, gentle.

Your hands have been linked with his the whole time, and you’ve both managed a simple two-step around the room. Your bodies are not close and flushing, and your skin does not buzz when he touches you, but you feel lazy contentment washing over you, warm and thick and slow, as you’ve never felt before in a dream.

“Do you know what’s happening?” You ask. “Why I keep seeing dead men, and dreaming about things you’ve never told me?”

He shoots a smirk at you, and says, “They say that God works in mysterious ways.”

“The God neither of us believe in?” You respond. “That one?”

“You say that,” Ed says. “After having met a god. After meeting the only god the matters.”

You swallow heavily. “You?” You ask.

His smile returns in full-force, and he closes his eyes.

His hands turn to powder in yours. You raise it up, and it sparkles like gold dust, swirling with a nonexistent wind.

“Ed!” You shout. He opens his eyes just a sliver and looks at you, and suddenly your heart is in your throat and all of your words get caught.

 _Don’t go._ You think. _Let me whisper I love you while we are dancing and the lights are low. Let me study the interplay of our hands; let me measure just how deep your eyes go. Let me count your stars and your hollows; let me compose a rhapsody of all your colors. I want to see the whole damn world look at you and go silent. I want to look at you and go silent._

You reach for him, and he slips through your fingers, incorporeal where he hasn’t already dissolved.

He opens his eyes once more, and they dance like flames.

 

 

  
It’s another one of those days — the ones that start off sideways.

You wake up half-off your bed, knees half-bent as your feet skimmed the surface of the cold hardwood floor. You make your morning coffee mindlessly, sleep clinging to you like dew on morning grass — bobbled and heavy and slightly unreal, in that strange, polished way of dreams. You walk to work in the same way, everything warped and off-center, like the world is passing through a fish-eye lens.

When you settle down at the office, you resign yourself to an entirely unproductive day. You work in a listless daze for several hours, getting entirely lost in thought while attempting — ineffectively, admittedly —to do paperwork.

“Mustang.” Ed says, and you startle, openly. He slams his hand against the desk, and you can hear your inkwell wobble. “We’re going out later.”

“When did you get here?” You ask. “And I was unaware that we had plans.” You respond. “I thought you were still researching Cretan alchemic techniques with Alphonse.”

“He shoved me out. Something about how I needed to ‘reacclimatize to civil society,’ or some shit, and I needed somewhere to go.” Ed snorts.

“Well,” you say, with no small amount of humor. “I hope I can serve as a decent substitution for the highs of alchemical research.”

Ed snorts. “I want burgers.” He says.

“I know this delightful little place that I’m certain you haven’t tried.” You say. “Although I’m afraid I can’t offer you a ride.”

You both load up into his car — a little brown thing lacking in Ed’s characteristic flourishes — and, after you set your cane down along the back seat, you run your fingers up and down the leather. It feels fairly worn — you can feel the ridges and rips under your palm. “Did you buy used?”

“Cheapest thing I could get at the time.” Ed says, shrugging. “Winry practically begged to fix the damn thing up, so I didn't see any point getting something good if she was just gonna tear its guts out anyway.”

“It runs very smoothly.” You say, agreeably. “Although it’s slightly smaller than I would have imagined you going for.”

He flicks you between the eyes and revs the car engine. “Shut your damn mouth.”

You start the drive in comfortable silence, the city sounds and winter sun more than entertaining enough to allow a lapse in conversation. You can hear the milling of the people in the streets, pacing up and down the icy sidewalks.

Maybe it’s a sign of your mood as a whole; Before you lost your eyesight, you always enjoyed people watching. It was a habit Madam Christmas had encouraged since you were young, and your current profession demanded it. It was a way to hewn your skills with people, imagining lives that weren’t your own. You gained empathy from it; you learned how to predict from it. It was the only way you had known how to play the game.

You don't really know how to read people, without visual cures. It’s been months — certainly, you ought to have adapted. But you couldn’t reconstruct a face from sound, read a stance from the smell of their cologne. It was like trying to put a puzzle together but — well, blind. You are undoubtably less capable to lead the country, now — who would trust a man with the reins of a country he can’t even see?

“What’s wrong?” Ed says, and you startle.

“Nothing.” You say, and your plaster on as placating a smile as you can manage. It likely looks like a grimace. You wouldn’t know. “I’m just… remembering.”

He goes silent, and you can feel his eyes bore into you. You flick your eyes — unseeing, grey, and enough to avert most gazes — to him, and he clears his throat, softly.

“You’re fucking stupid, sometimes.” He says.

_You probably look incandescent right now. Can you tell me how you look — can you describe your own face, and the ways you’ve aged? Can you tell me what your eyes look like?_

You put a hand on his thigh.

He rolls down the window with the hand crank, and the glass squeaks all the way down. You can feel the sunlight on your face — its heat seeps into your pores. You close your eyes and breathe in the sharpness of the day.

You can only imagine the way he looks — all sunlit and smiling, his hair whipping itself to knots in the wind.

He grabs your hand, his fingers sweaty and small in yours.

You would be concerned about his driving, but… Well.

He could crash the car, for all that you care. You can think of worse ways to die.

He pulls into the restaurant with a screech of his tires. Before you’re aware that the car’s quite stopped, he’s jumping out, and opening the door for you.

“I can't just let a senior citizen struggle.” He says, cheeky and slightly probing. _Is this all right?_ He doesn't say. _Tell me where it hurts. Do you want a bandage? I can stick one on your heart, to stop the bleeding._

It’s been quite a while since you’ve been out on a date, in any capacity, but you remember how these things go. He's sent the ball to your side of the court, and now you ought to establish a back-and-forth.

I should flick him, now. Your mind supplies. For the insult. He's joking — joke back.

You should flick him, but you’re not exactly sure where he is right now, and you’d prefer not to miss. What remains of your dignity ought to be preserved — it’s rather fragile, these days.

 _How am I supposed to dance with you?_ You wonder. _I can't see my own feet — let me whisper I love you, while we are dancing and the lights are low —_

He stops your thoughts with a press of his lips to yours. He’s firm and assertive, but hesitant all the same, like he’s afraid you’ll retreat. Like he thinks you’ll run.

He pulls away wraps his arms around you, tight, and your thoughts slow to silence and the movement of his hands.

You wrap your arms around him in return, and you sit together, in a parking lot, the engine pinging and your cane lying, forgotten, in the back seat.

You wait with him like that, for a while. You're not sure for how long, until he stands and stretches, his vertebra popping like firecrackers along the length of his spine. “I’m still hungry.” He yawns. “Wanna eat here or head back to your place?”

“I did promise you burgers.” You say. “It’d be a shame to have driven out here for no reason.”

“Not a shame, but…” He pauses for a moment, and leans against you. “You’re paying, right?”

“You still owe me 520 cenz.” You grumble.

You begin your walk to the restaurant door, and he retorts, “That’s completely unrelated to this! Bribery for your lazy ass to finally get the Fuhrership is entirely different!”

“So you admit that it’s bribery, then?” You smirk, opening the restaurant door for him. “The living legend of the people, enabling government corruption? What would your fans say?”

“You shut your damn mouth.” Ed snickers. “Do you have any idea of how many laws I broke when I was looking for the stone? Nobody in their right mind is gonna be disappointed.”

You shudder, just a little, as the waitress takes you to your table. “I am in a better position than anyone to know how many laws you broke.”

You hold your head in your hands, and you are only slightly overplaying your reaction. “So much _paperwork_.”

He giggles. “Remember when I was chasing after that rogue alchemical group in Lisier? And their hideout was in the old mining system?”

You groan. “And you decide to collapse the entire goddamn mine and cause untold property damage?”

“Hey, I fixed it up just fine!” He says.

“Sure, but the damn mayor wanted compensation because you, and I quote, _destabilized_ some of the mining tunnels, and you violated every _imaginable_ law regarding damage of public property — we were dealing with the repercussions for _months_.”

He whacks you with a menu. “Stop complaining. You couldn’t’ve caught those fuckers without me. Their alchemy was nasty.”

“Didn’t they specialize in manipulating the structure of stone?” You ask.

“Yeah!” Ed exclaims. “They had this little fuck-hole in the mines.” He moves his hands so wildly that he hits you in the arm. “They had booby traps _everywhere_.”

“I’m sure someone else in the military could have handled it.” You say. “Someone with less of a tendency to rush into dangerous situations without thinking things through first — which, come to think of it, happens to be the vast majority of military officers.”

“You can't argue with my results.” He says, and you can hear him leaning back in his chair. “I bet I was one of the most efficient people you had.”

You move to retort that efficiency in assignment completion was in no way worth the _horrific_ paperwork trade-off, but your waitress comes around, asking for your meal orders. Ed gets the largest burger they serve, while you order the special — you find that it saves time, not having to ask what’s on the menu.

After she leaves, you both swirl your straws in your water glasses in companionable silence.

You nudge him with your foot. “How’s Alphonse doing? He hasn’t come in as much after getting his body back.”

“Because he weighs 30 pounds, you dumbass.” Ed says. “He’s getting better, but I’m still kinda worried that his entire body will just — I dunno, break if he so much as goes outside.”

You can hear the chair slide back while Ed presumably slouches. “I know I’m being overprotective — it drove me nuts when Granny and Win did the same thing after my automail surgery — but… still.”

Ed shakes your wrist with tangible excitement. “He’s got these awesome cats now though!”

“Does he?” You ask. “And I thought you were against Alphonse’s all-consuming quest to acquire every existing cat?”

“That was only when we were trying to get the stone — we could hardly even take care of ourselves, much less a cat.” Ed says frankly. “Besides, cats make great study buddies — Al’s got one that he calls Sadie but is really named the Menace who Prowls the Night. She likes to sit on my automail when I’m by the fire.”

“How many cats do you have, exactly?” You ask, and you’re only a little frightened of the answer.

“Like 8, I think.” Ed says, scratching his arm. “Only that’s if you don’t count Reptar, who is a lizard, not a cat, and shouldn’t be included in cat-counting.”

You ponder this in silence, for a moment, before the waiter comes back around with your meals.  
Ed consumes his with what you would consider an all-together unnecessary amount of vigor while you primly nibble at your burger and what you assume to be some sort of garlic french fry.

Ed sighs contentedly, and the chewing noises that were emanating from his side of the table seem to have ceased, so you can only assume that he’s finished with his meal.

You wipe your mouth with your napkin and say, “I certainly hope you enjoyed your food, considering the amount of time it took for us to acquire it.”

“Yeah,” Ed says, and his fingers brush yours across the table. “It was good.”

He stands, and knocks the chair back with what most would consider an unnecessary amount of force, but with what you've come to learn is just the typical amount for Edward Elric. “Thanks, Roy.” He says, and he sounds as genuine as you’ve ever heard him.

“For what?” You ask, bewildered.

He moves closer to you, and with a quicker movement than you were expecting, hugs you, pressing his lips to your neck. His smile is simple and soft against your skin, and he doesn't say anything else.

You exit the restaurant slowly, and you melt into that warm-tinted lackadaisical feeling you get when you’re full and sated during the drive back. He lets you bask in the feeling for a few minutes, focused on the driving, before asking, “You wanna go into town? I don’t really feel like heading home just yet.”

You nod, and he drives into the main part of Central, stopping in front of a tinkling fountain you can hear when he opens your car door. He hands you your cane, and with a bit of maneuvering, you’re out of the car and walking next to Ed, the winter twinkling against your skin.

You stick your tongue out and, to your surprise, a snowflake lands on it immediately. “It’s snowing.” You say, startled. “The forecast said to expect a warm front.”

“Not so much.” Ed says. “It was just starting on the way back.”

He goes silent for a moment, and looks out over the cityscape. “It looks beautiful right now, Roy.”

You nod, and you think you can imagine it — the snow light and not-yet-lush, the city slowly blooming into whiteness. You imagine that the street lamps are that warm-melting yellow that colors all of the streets into softness, and the fountain is nearly crystal in contrast, bubbling merrily in the cold, and just starting to freeze around the edges. You imagine that the buildings are just barely covered, as are you — snow dusts the crowns of roofs and heads, collecting in streets and scarf divots.

Your imagination is not always to be trusted, however — you know that you have a habit of making the world more beautiful, now that you can’t see it. You’re sure that there’s trash piling in some abandoned street corner, some alley gone grease-slick and stained with poor attempts at graffiti lining the walls. You’re sure that there's something ugly in this moment, right now — you just can't think of it. You can't think of anything ugly at all.

“I’m sure it is, Ed.” You say, and you are at peace. “I’m sure it is.”

He leans against you, and his hair tickles your collarbones, where your scarf doesn’t cover, and even if you can’t imagine the picture the street must make, you can imagine the way the two of you look, with his hair pooling in your hollows, his body flush against your side.

This is the sort of moment that _I love you’s_ are saved for, you think.

You open your mouth to tell him this, and then, slowly, stop, and grab his hand once again.

It’s not that you feel like waiting — it’s not that you feel like your feelings are something that you need to hide from Ed. It’s more that your words probably wouldn’t be enough, to contain all it is that’s swirling around in you.

You love Edward Elric, certainly. You’ve known this for quite some time — perhaps since he sprung into your life again; perhaps when he curled up in your duvet and tangled his legs with yours that first time; perhaps when he fell asleep on you and snored more quietly than you ever would have imagined he could.

But telling Ed that you love him is not the same as telling him that this moment is probably the freest you have ever been. Saying I love you could not possible capture the subtleties of this street corner, of the ways that you feel all ice-bright and shimmering, of the ways that everything is resplendent and gold-tinted in your imagining. Experiencing this moment with him is a more complete declaration of love than anything you could ever say.

You imagine, as well, that he feels similarly — the fact that Ed would experience something this meaningful with you is as bold a declaration of Ed’s feelings as you ever could have expected. His relationships have always been built on the things that have remained unsaid. He’s got so many little subtleties, yes, but all his truths are immediate, written in his eyes, flourishing unspoken. “He’s my little brother,” Ed said, as if it encapsulated everything that Alphonse was to him, as if it explained all the ways that he had sacrificed himself for Al, and all the ways that they would die without each other.

“Thanks, Roy.” He said, in the restaurant, as he shouldered your burdens, too — as he accepted all the ways that you are lacking.

You exhale, and the air rushes out wonderfully, melting into mist.

The gun presses its way in between your ribs.

“Freeze, Mustang.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be posted on December 17. 
> 
> Beta: Just_Another_Shipper
> 
> Tumblr Plug: https://walking-pillar-of-salt.tumblr.com
> 
> cliffhanger is dickish, but will be justified in following chapter.


	3. How to Be a Human Being

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No, don't go back there. No — please. You've got my hand. You've got me.
> 
> Sweetheart, you don't have to go.

“Put your hands behind your back, Mustang.” Someone says behind you, and you shock into stillness. 

Ed, however, does not, and kicks the gun out of their hand with a ferocious blow, clipping the side of your ribs. 

 _“Shit.”_ You hiss, partly from the pain and partly from the shock. “Ed, do you see any more of them?” 

Ed picks up the gun and shoots your assailant in someplace you would assume is non-lethal. They howl for a moment, and Ed says, reluctantly, “More than we could beat on our own, like this.”

“Then go for help.” You say. “They didn’t mention you, at all. You could probably get away.”

“… _Roy_.” He says, softly. 

“If they didn’t kill me earlier, they won’t kill me immediately.” You kiss him with what is altogether either far too little or far too much force. “This is the safest option for both of us.”

“I don’t want to leave you.” Ed whispers. “I can do anything else, but please don’t ask me to leave you.”

“If you love me, run.” You murmur. _“Run!”_

You hear his footsteps on the pavement, his automail foot slamming into the concrete until suddenly, he screams, “ _Duck_ , Roy!” 

You throw yourself to the ground and the world explodes into sound. 

There’s so much noise —  _there’s so much noise —_ and you can hardly breathe, for a moment, because of the familiarity of the gunfire. 

The sound ceases for a moment, and you feel a rough tugging on your hands and someone slams you into the pavement, your head banging against the ground. 

You would scream Ed’s name — you want desperately to, would scream it so loud it’d never leave your throat — but you can’t. If you screamed for him, he would come back for you, and he would die. 

You have dealt with hell and managed devils, but he cannot come back for you — so, you do not scream. You do not scream even when your thoughts blur and your eyes roll back as someone slams your head against the ground, again and again. 

You do not scream, but you almost sob, because you can feel your skull cracking, and your skin shattering on the ground. You bite into your lip hard enough that it splits. 

When the blackness comes for you, you surrender to it.

 

 

 

When you wake up, there is a weight on your shoulder. 

You shake your head and everything _tips_ , but the pain isn't so bad as to be incapacitating, so you suppose that you can count yourself lucky. 

You shift your shoulder. 

Braided hair falls on your neck, and everything inside you shatters.

“Ed?” You whisper. 

You shift your hands, and something sticky is coating the ground — something sticky is coating Ed’s entire left side. 

You can't stop the scream that crawls its way out of your throat.

“No, _please.”_ You say, and you scrabble, feeling desperately for his pulse _. “God, Ed — please._ If you die on me, Edward Elric — _if you die_ —”

_There’s no heaven that we believe in, and there’s no heaven that I deserve — I cannot simply follow you to the void. If you die, you’d doom me without you — whether here or in the seething dark. You would strand me on an island, and you would be the sunset, and as much as I've tried, I can’t reach the stars by drowning. You’d die, and I’d spend the rest of my life tonging at the wound. I’ve memorized all of your sounds — the way you hum so quietly that for months I thought I was imagining it, the way your laughs come out so sharp-soft, the way your voice pinches at the edges when you’re ready to run — but I’m afraid I’ll misplace them, the same way I’ve lost the hue of a thunderstorm and the exact shade of August your eyes are. You'd be liquid pooling in my lungs — I’d always be dying, and I would drown in you. You’d die and I’d never see you again, and surely the whole world will shudder from the loss._

His heart beats under your hand, sluggish and weak.

You wipe your useless damn eyes, and you take inventory. 

You have a serious head injury. You have no idea where you are, or why you are here. Ed is slumped at your side, hardly alive, and you do not know how he is injured, or if he is still bleeding. 

You are blind. 

“Ed —  _please wake up._ ” You say. “You have to tell me how injured you are —  _Ed.”_

You jostle him as much as your conscience will allow, and he inhales, sharp and ragged. 

“Roy?” Ed says. “What’s…”

He doubles over, coughing fiercely, you can feel something warm and wet splatter on your hand.

“You have to tell me how you're injured.” You don't mince words — you don’t know how much time either of you have, and you don't intend on wasting it.

“Some internal damage.” Ed breathes. “Obviously. I’m bleeding from my side — it feels really bad.”

You exhale harshly, and you reach in your pocket for your gloves.

“What are you…” He dwindles when he sees you slipping your gloves on. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m damn sure.” You say — he doesn’t need to know how much you’re struggling to control your breathing.

He guides your hand, over a sideways slice just under his ribs. You can feel the blood seeping into your glove. 

“Healing fire,” he says, and you freeze. Of course he sees through you — you remember what those eyes looked like. He could see through anyone. 

You haven’t used your gloves since the Promised Day, and maybe that’s foolish, but you have a lot of old wounds that have yet to heal.  You remember what happened the last time you used your power without reserve and then, you had control over it. Then, you had control over yourself. 

You could never forgive yourself if you hurt someone. 

In years before, you prided yourself on your control — the way that you could send tongues of flame along the narrowest channels of air, and burn only what needed burning. 

The flame that comes out of your glove _pops_ against his wound, a little spark bursting. You have no control. There is only his face against your shoulder, and the shaking of your hands. 

“God, Mustang.” He chuckles, weakly. “You think you'd be better at this by now.”

Yes, you would think so. Although you had forgotten, for a little while, it’s true: you’ve burned enough people. 

You rub your fingers together until there’s a little fire, leaping towards him. It wants to burn; you let it. You burn him until there’s nothing left in the world but the smell of flesh and his face against your shoulder. He sobs against you — ragged little gasps in the dark. A loose hair singes: you can smell it. Burning bodies have a very specific stench that always makes you think of deserts, makes you think of bodies melting against you and the way Riza would hold you as you fought the urge to run. 

And now you are burning him, and he smells like corpse meat, like ashes loosing in the wind. He is all you have left. 

He smells like Ishval. He smells like the war.

“Are you done?” He says in a low crackle. You nod, and he exhales with a wheeze, like his lungs are full of dust. They very well could be; you know yours are. 

“Thank you.” He murmurs, and he leans against your side. “I… Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” You say, as quietly as you can, like maybe the silence could snuff your guilt out. It burns, and you swear your insides are cooked through, with the way it smolders in the pit of your chest, in between your ribs. You know it was necessary; you _know_ it was for the greater good — “It was necessary,” Bradley says, as you walk away from the cities you made into funeral pyres — and _god,_ you wish the room smelled less like the worst of your sins made manifest —

Ed grabs your hand and says “ _Breathe.”_

You are panicking, you realize. Your heart is pounding against the confines of your ribs, and you don’t think your hands have stopped shaking since you got to this damned place. 

“It’s all right.” He says, and you cup his face and kiss him, hard, tongue-in-teeth and hands scrabbling to cup chin — nose — eye sockets — cheekbones, one by one. 

“I thought I’d lost you,” you say, “and I’ve spent so many years looking.”

 _And there’s already so much dust in my lungs,_ you don't say, _that I’d stop breathing if you shattered; you are so bright that I can see you, and you are the last thing on earth that doesn’t look like the war._

He cuffs your shoulder. “Yeah, you probably can’t afford to spend that much longer on the market.”

You breathe — slowly, carefully. You’re not sure if you could handle any more roughness, even from yourself. “Yes, that’s it.”

He pushes himself to his feet, and the crumbling remains of the ceiling tile leap off him life survivors off a sinking ship. 

“Well,” he winces, “it’s probably time to bust this joint. You think you can make the trip?”

“Only if you can keep up.” You plaster on a smirk, but you haven't adjusted your expressions in the mirror for months, and you aren’t sure what your face looks like anymore. 

You remember his face, though — in its multitudes, screaming golden with harsh angles and dark circles that always reminded you of the way the night melts at morning. You remember him at 12, at 15: young and furious, the most righteous fire to ever torch the streets, or cynical and worn but gleaming like glass. You remember that he was always the most beautiful when he was denying himself the right to feel pain. 

You can imagine him now, gleaming in the dark, like something dangerous. The sun fashioned into a weapon fashioned into a man, with godhood spilling out at the edges. 

You offer your hand to an approximation of his location. He takes it, and pulls you off the ground. You stand, the dust coating you like a glue, and you can feel the _creak_ of your knees as you gather yourself. 

“You bet your ass, Mustang.” He says, ageless like the angels, watching from above, “Wanna bet the team didn’t notice that we were gone?”

 

 

 

You wake up in a haze of antiseptic fumes and pain killers. You can feel that you even been injured, but only distantly, like there’s a wall between you and the feeling. 

Actually, there seems to be a wall between you and everything — you have no idea what’s going on. You raise your head and immediately regret it as your head begins to throb. 

You put your head back down, and everyone around you springs back into motion. 

“ _Chief!”_ The room exclaims, and you can hear several bodies move towards your bedside. 

“How are you doing, General?” Hawkeye asks, and you can hear how her voice pinches at the edges with worry.

“I’ve been better.” You wince, and it’s true. You weren’t aware of it before, but you have a stabbing pain in your temple, and the skin of your face aches every time you speak. 

“You have a concussion of unknown severity and an impressive number of superficial wounds.” Breda says. “Congrats on doing such a number on yourself.”

“Is Ed alright?” You ask. 

“I’m good!” Ed pipes up from what you can only assume is another hospital bed. “My leg’s kind of fucked up from our daring escape, and I’ve got a burn wound the size of Creta on my side, but I’m pretty okay.”

You force down the spike of guilt you feel at that, and ask, “How did we even get out?”

“We distracted them with a combination of general badassery and flame alchemy, and made our way outside their complex.” Ed says. “You passed out as soon as we got back into town — their base of operations was a warehouse in the southern part of Central.”

“Lovely.” You sigh, and you turn your attention to the room at large. “Do we know who did all of this?” You ask. “Do we know if they even had a reason?"

“Naturally, the group abandoned the complex as soon as you escaped, but they abandoned the guy Ed took down for dead, so we interrogated him.” Riza says. “They’re just a militant group that resents that recent shift in our power structure. They accused you instigating the events of the Promised Day, sir. As a power grab.”

Ed snorts from his bed. “Yeah, that’s likely.” Ed says. “You think he could get people to listen to him well enough to organize something of that scale? You’re out of your mind.”

You can picture Riza’s smile in your head. “I informed him of that. He’s currently being held in the Central prison, so I’m sure he has time to mull it over.”

“Do we know if any more of them are waiting to act?” You ask. 

“Now, that’s the tricky part.” Breda interjects. “We don’t, and we have absolutely no way of figuring that out. The current plan is just to keep you and the Boss under high guard until we can figure out something better.”

“Excellent.” You sigh. “Can we at least stay at my house?”

“Sure.” Breda says, breezily. “If you wanna supply food for the five people it’s going to take to guard the damn thing.” 

“I feed him.” Roy says, and he points a thumb in what was Ed’s direction the last time that Ed spoke. “What’s a few more?"

 

 

 

 

Once you and Ed are both cleared for medical release, you all meander over towards your house, and you and Ed settle in for a long evening. You settle into bed as soon as possible, and you sleep fully, until you hear the tinkling of shattered ceramic from the kitchen. 

You sit up cautiously, your steps light and careful. You know that you had guards stationed tonight — what would have gotten past them? 

You slide your gloves on and walk towards the bedroom door. 

You open it with a _creak_ that seems deafening, and you walk until you reach the top of the stairs, poised for action. 

You hear a soft sobbing from where the sound originated, and you realize your mistake. 

You leap down the stairs, and shout, _“Ed!”_

“Hey, Roy.” Ed sobs. “How are you doing?”

“Ed, what’s wrong?” You murmur, and you place your hand on his shoulder. 

“I broke your stupid fucking figurine.” He mumbles, and he places his face on the crook of your shoulder. “The elephant one that we keep on the table near the fireplace.”

“I don’t care about the figurine, Ed. What’s wrong, sweetheart?” You ask him, and you rub circles into his automail scars. 

“We can’t keep doing this, Roy.” Ed murmurs, his voice is crackling like radio static. 

All of your feelings dwindle into whiteness — harsh and numb, and far too cold. 

“What?” You whisper. 

“You think I didn’t _notice?”_ He asks, and his voice dribbles out slowly, like puss out of a wound. “You would have died for me back there.”

You start. “Ed, that’s –”

“ _No.”_ Ed says, firmly, and _god,_ you don’t think you’ve ever heard him sound this miserable. “You don’t get to do this _._ You don't get to value yourself less.” 

He grabs your shirt collar and gently pulls you towards him, and he pushes your foreheads together.

You put your hand to your face, and it comes off wet against all of your scabs. 

“Roy…” He whispers, your noses nearly brushing. “I fucking – I love you, you know that?”

“I love you too, sweetheart.” You say, softly. 

He presses his face into your cheek, and smiles wetly against you. “Stop being all sappy right now. I’ve got things I need to say.”

“Do you,” he says, and his tears drop onto your hands. “Have any idea how much you mean to me?”

You open your mouth to say something, and he presses a finger to your lips. 

“I can answer that for you.” He says, soft and slow, his tears still falling. “You don’t. Because if you did, you wouldn’t think it’d be okay for you to do what you did today. You were going to sacrifice yourself for me, when you told me to run.”

“It was me or you.” You say, honest. “There was only one choice.”

“You don't have the right to make that decision.” He murmurs, his voice cracking. “Because I think you care about me more than you’ve ever cared about yourself.”

“I’m not worth more than you are.” He says. “Ever since you went blind – ever since Ishval, even – it’s been so obvious that you hate yourself. Please don’t think you're not worth anything, Roy.”

“I know I’m worth something.” You murmur. “I just… Ed, I…”

 “Sometimes,” he interrupts. “I wonder why you stick around. I wonder why you’re here at all.”

You exhale, and you cup his face. 

“I need to close my mouth more.” Ed says, and everything comes out of him in a rush. “I’ve got too many things that I can only think about at night. I get nervous around dogs, I can’t breathe in firelight, and when people aren't talking I hear all of the voices of people that I didn't save. I sometimes stare off into space for hours and think of nothing but how red they all were. Sometimes I think about blood, too – sometimes I think about Hughes. Sometimes I think about how I promised I wouldn’t kill anyone.

“I can't sleep without somebody else in the room.” He murmurs. “I’ve only ever been good at alchemy, and I don't even have that anymore. I’m terrified of needles, and I don’t think I’ll make it if I lose anybody else.”

He sniffles, and murmurs, “I love you.”

“Sweetheart,” you gasp. You grab his head and hold it to your chest, his body pressed flush against yours. 

“Sweetheart.” You whisper into the crown of his hair. 

“I love you so goddamn much.” Ed says, without shifting. He's whispering too — he’s still and soft and quiet, like there's nothing left in him but air.

“I love you so much that it scares me.” He murmurs, after enough minutes have passed for you to stop counting them. 

“I need some time, Roy.” He says, and it’s not unexpected, but the wound still smarts in you like it was. 

“How long?” You whisper. 

“I don't know.” He says, and he presses your foreheads together again. “I don’t know.”

“I’ll come back, though.” He says. “I swear I’ll come back.”

“Please.” You press your forehead against his harder, as if it will make a difference. Maybe you want him to hurt, for making you feel like everything in you is crumbling down to black concrete dust, the kind that gets in your throat and never leaves. Maybe you want him to bruise in purple and pink and in all of those other colors you’ve forgotten. Maybe you want him to look at himself and find something that’s yours. 

He seems to understand, because he presses his face against your cheek and smiles for too long, too twisted up itself to be understood, but you do. This much, at least, you understand.

“Ed.” You kiss him deeply — as deep as you can, as deep as his sorrows go. “I’m sorry.”

“I know.” He whispers. He exhales heavily, and moves his forehead from yours to look down at his hands. “I know.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have anxiety and i slep so this was late
> 
> am have sorry
> 
> sunday prob stat


	4. Eurydice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The monsters are always hungry, darling. And for all of those lists I’ve made, of the names I’ve lost — losing you isn’t the same. It’s not the same at all.

Three days later, Ed’s coat is found in a gutter in South Central, completely covered in blood. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> upday sunday
> 
> beta: just_another_shipper


	5. The Fullmetal Alchemist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> God, this is the end, isn't it? Of all of this. Finally, everything unwinds. Sweetheart, you had me dangling by a thread, for a while. You almost had me thinking that you weren't going to make it.

They find you on your bedroom floor, hands tangled into your shirt sleeves, eyes on the ceiling and thoughts on the ground. 

“Do you know where he is?” Alphonse says, and it’s just calm enough to be threatening. 

“He left.” You say. You bite your lip, and it swells up underneath your teeth, until your heart’s in your mouth. “He left.”

“You both were just kidnapped, for reasons unknown, and you let him leave?” Alphonse whispers, and it’s so silent, but it comes out like a wind that’s on fire, a wind that makes sandstorms and blows deserts into pieces. 

“I wasn’t… I wasn’t thinking straight.” You say, as if that could anything even remotely resembling a justification. You can feel your tear sockets loosing, and you press your palms too tightly against your face. “He never gets quiet, Alphonse, and he seemed so _small_ , and I didn't know what to do, and…”

You trail off, and you wipe your tears on your sleeve. “Has anyone gotten close to finding him yet?”

“We don’t have any clues.” Riza intones, and she almost manages to sound detached. “All we know is that he left from your house, and that he’s emotionally unstable.”

“Alphonse?” You ask. “Do you know anywhere that he would go to hide? If he needed some quiet?”

“Usually he goes to your house, sir.” Alphonse says, and _damn,_ if that doesn’t leave a mark. 

“Does the public know, then?” You ask. “We can pose rewards for information.”

“The Central Times ran it as their cover story yesterday, sir.” Hawkeye says. “A civilian found his jacket.”

“Missing — The Fullmetal Alchemist.” Falman reads, in a monotone that makes your fingers curl in on themselves. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“It’s – okay.” You steady yourself. “It might be easier to find him, this way. If whoever took him makes a mistake, we have eyes everywhere, now.”

Someone places a hand on your shoulder, thin fingers pressing into the divots of your collarbone. “We’ll find him, sir.” Riza says. “I promise.”

“I promise.” You repeat, quietly, and the words burn as soon as they leave your mouth, smoldering down to nothing. 

 

 

 

 

 

You look — and there is nothing.

Well, to be more specific, _everyone_ _else_ looks. You wouldn’t be much help. 

Many in the military still have a soft spot for Elric, or, at the very least, know that you do, so troops run the ground on a regular basis, searching Central and all around it for any sign of — well, anything, really. A scuffle, loose alchemical energy, a fucking blond ponytail — anything.

Alphonse hasn’t spoken to you since Ed left — he’s too busy looking for him. Winry had come with him, and they spend days searching the town. They comb over old haunts, and new ones, and if Ed is like a spitfire, too much to be contained, Alphonse is like the wind, like the sand — subtler, but impossible to stop. 

If there was something to find, he would find it.

Which is why, when he curls up, on the fifth day, hands in his armpits and head on his knees, you know that it’s the end.  And you’ve never been a fool — you can read the tea leaves as well as anybody else. 

“We found a note.” Alphonse says, and he sounds as heartbroken as you’ve ever heard anyone. “It says that they took him because – because of Ishval.”

“Because he mattered to me?” You ask, and you’ve heard this before, so the words flow out of you easily, like blood from a wound.  “Because I killed people, and hid it — because I never got what I deserved?”

“Got it in one.” Alphonse whispers, and you want to cry, but you don’t, because this may be a damn tragedy, but it’s one you know — losing people, that is.  

 

 

 

 

Once more — you are dreaming. 

The sky is glimmering like you can never remember having seen it; so black it looks milky, so filled with stars that it looks fake. There is nothing around you except a moon-shaped pool and the strangely-transparent ground. You skim your fingers along the surface of the water, and you shiver violently as something heady and dark bubbles up in you — something that makes you think of the other side of dreams. Something that makes you think of the place where everyone gets everything they want. 

He steps underneath you, underneath that strangely-transparent ground, and he looks down at you. 

“Hey ya, Roy.” Edward Elric says, and his eyes have a far-tinged sadness that makes you think of distance.

“ _Ed.”_ You whisper, and you fall down to your knees. 

“Hey.” He murmurs, again, but it’s gentler, this time. “It’s gonna be okay.”

 _“What’s happening?”_ You say, desperately, your breaths coming in too sharp. “Where are you, Ed?”

“If I could explain it to you, I would have.” Ed says, in that same voice that makes you think of the way Maes would whisper to you, sometimes, on those days where you needed to be talked down from a ledge. “And if I knew, I’d tell you.”

He sticks his hand inside the pool on his end, and the pool on your side goes concave with the force of it. 

“What on earth?” You murmur.

“I’ve been here long enough that I’ve stopped keeping track of the time.” Ed says. “I’ve had some time to figure things out.” 

“Firstly, whatever this black is – it doesn’t let go.” Ed says, and he yanks his hand out of it. “It clings – like a film. If you stick your head in, it gets in your lungs and _seeps_.”

“Did you try?” You ask. “To get through, I mean.”

He snorts. “Don’t ask stupid questions.” which, in the case of Edward Elric, can only mean yes. 

You imagine him like that — all knife-edged and desperate, diving into a pool of liquid that he reason to believe would kill him. You imagine the goop clinging to the sides of his throat and not letting go. You imagine his eyes covered, darkness everywhere, the whites of his eyes bleeding black as he claws against his face.

You imagined him lowered. You imagine him lost. 

“What do you think this is, Ed?” You ask. “This ooze. This place.” You don’t ask how he lived — you’re not sure if he did, if you’re being honest with yourself — and this place seems beyond death anyway. This place — which looks more like an afterlife than you ever thought you’d see — doesn’t seem to be the sort of place that someone would go to to die.

“I have some theories about it.” Ed says, with a finality. “But I think it’s fear. I think it’s every fear anyone has ever had.”

Ed turns his head towards you and meets you directly in the eyes. 

“What are you doing here, Roy?” Ed asks.

“I’m here for you, sweetheart.” You say, and you didn’t know that until you said it, but it’s true, isn’t it? He’s all that you could be here for. You would follow him to the ends of the world if he asked — beyond the world, even. Beyond any of this shit — beyond the pale, beyond the nether, beyond the _next._ He’s the only damn thing that’s ever mattered. 

Ed smiles, and it’s sharp in the same way that the sun is sharp — so bright that it cuts into you like a knife. It’s a dangerous grin — _so, so dangerous_ — but you don’t heed its warning until it’s too late.

“This love of yours – it’s like a religion for you.” Ed says, distantly. “Roy…” 

He claps, slamming his hands against the dirt, and the ground between you shatters. 

He offers his hand through the cracks, and meets your eyes, gold dust swimming through his hair and his eyes shimmering like the space between the sea and sky. 

“Would you bow to me?” He murmurs, and he pulls you through the divide. 

“What?” You whisper, and Ed leans over you, body blocking out the world.

“You heard me.” Ed whispers. “You’ve always been willing to lower yourself. So come on – pray. Offer up shrines to my name.”

He grabs your wrists and lowers you to the ground, eyes glimmering like sundials — like he’s the barometer against which everything is measured. 

 _Like_ , you think, _he’s the only damn thing that’s ever mattered._

“Bleed for me.” Edward Elric says. He kisses you, and you taste a familiar lie on his lips — a familiar taste of sharp, gleaming metal. 

“Maes.” You whisper. 

“That’s not quite right.” Ed says, with a grin, and he kisses you deeper. “Try again.”

“You’re not Edward Elric.” You murmur, and you push him off you, rising to your feet. “You were never Edward Elric.”

“I’m not, am I?” He asks, and he saunters towards you, like a snake, like a flicker in a bonfire.  
  
He breathes against your lips. “Just what am I, then?”

You take his lip in your mouth and close your eyes.

The Gate of Truth towers over you in the whiteness, metal reaching skyward. 

“Truth?” You call, apprehensive, and your voice reverberates through the heavy bones of the silence. 

The gate opens silently.

Edward Elric’s unmistakable golden eye stares out at you from the center of the black.

“What?” You whisper. 

“You need a new god, Mustang.” Truth says, thousands of voices jeering at once. 

Truth appears in front of you and _oh god, they have your fucking eyes._

 _“_ Why am I here?” You ask, and your voice comes out as a croak. 

“I wanted you to be.” Truth says, and the familiar black of your eyes glimmer out of a featureless face. “So you are.”

“What – what _are_ you?” You whisper. 

“Haven’t I already told you?” Truth simpers. “I am what you might call… the world. Or perhaps the universe, or perhaps God, or perhaps truth, or perhaps all, or perhaps one.”

“Or perhaps,” Truth says, “you.”

“You keep lying to yourself, Roy Mustang.” Truth says, and it sounds like a taunt, but it certainly doesn’t feel like one.

“You pretend that you are whole, but you aren’t.” Truth says. “You pretend that you can fix things, but you can’t. You pretend that you’re worthy of forgiveness, but you won’t ever be.”

“You pretend that you’re good enough for him, but people like him don’t happen to people like you.” Truth says. “But you could be.”

“Do you want to make a trade?” Truth asks. 

“A – a trade?” You say, and your voice shakes violently. 

“Perhaps you didn’t get a chance to learn last time but, yes.” Truth says. “My domain is knowledge. I know everything has ever been know — and things that won’t ever be.”

“Is there something you want to know?” They ask. “Mr. Al-che-mist?”

You feel a quake in the ugly meat of your heart and you feel yourself go still, and silent, and cold. You feel yourself go to marble. 

“I can tell you how to find him, you know.” Truth smiles. “It wouldn’t even be that bad of a trade. I can take a leg, so you’d match.”

There are so many questions that you thought you’d have. 

Ed told you, of course — one night, when he was breathing light into you, giving you blessings with the tip of his tongue. You were by the fire, because you’re always by the fire, and he had whispered, _”_ They told me everything,” into your hair. 

“What?” You had whispered back, against the fleshy folds of his ear.

“I told you.” Ed had said. “They said, ‘Ask,’ so I did, and then, for a moment – just one – they told me everything.”

“And then they took it away.” He had said, so quietly you didn’t think you heard it. “And they said, ‘Do you want to look again?’” 

“But the truth of it is.” Ed had said. “You’re not supposed to look. There are some things that’ll meet your eyes and then never give them back.”

You meet your own eyes, in a face that isn’t yours. 

In your mind, in your memories, in your matter, Ed murmurs, “If the Truth ever comes for you, think about me. Imagine you’re dancing. Imagine that the room falls away.”  

“Let me whisper I love you.” Ed says. 

“While we’re dancing, and the lights are low.” You finish, like a recitation, like a prayer, like the tides, flowing out of your stupid, stupid heart. 

 _I know we both have spent time looking for it, in one way or another._ You think. _But we both were already here._

_This is the place where we get everything we want._

“No.” You say, and it echoes throughout the vastness.

“No?” Truth asks, softly. 

“I’m going to find him.” You say, and you’re just as inexplicably quiet. “I – I _have_ to find him.”

The truth of it all of it is that you’re not supposed to look, so you don’t. 

You rub your fingers together, and a little fire starts in the space between them.

You let it flow from you — gently, softly. It circles the room, and it grows around you — taller, thinner, casing you in. You let it hold you, and you close your eyes, because the way the fire reaches out, turning all of the world to sun-tinged victory — it makes you think of Ed. 

You close your eyes, but everything is still white behind your lids, and when you open them up again, you’re back in space, and the sky is spinning again, the world made of giddy, stupid stars. 

 _The lights._ You think. _The lights._ You reach for them, but before you touch them, you hear a murmur in the base of your skull _._

 _That’s it._ Truth whispers, content. _You beat me._

You hold one of the lights in your palm, and your dumb fucking heart finally takes root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you don’t even have a name for, and it burns. It burns.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next morning, you wake up hardly yourself, but hardly someone else, either. You get dressed slowly, slipping on your uniform, and it fits on you like mornings do, waking you up in increments. 

You stroll into the office self-possessed, and you place your hands on the table.

“Could we hold a press conference?” You ask. “Looking for him the traditional way isn’t – it isn’t working, and I have some things I need to say.”

“Well – sure, boss.” Havoc says. “What’re you gonna say, though? The public already knows he’s missing.”

“You know why he was taken.” You say. “I think that it’s time.”

“Sir – _sir_.” Hawkeye whispers, and she shudders. “Are you saying…”

“I don’t give a damn about politics.” You say. “I’ll do whatever it takes to find him.”

“Ishval?” Fuery whispers, and you can almost feel the realization dawn on the rest of the room.

“I’m going to tell the world the truth about Ishval.” You say. “Maybe that’ll convince whoever has him to let him go.”

The room explodes, and everyone starts sending messages to reporters, telegramming news outlets, and you close your eyes, for just a moment, and you don’t even notice when you slip off into sleep.

When you wake up, Hawkeye is shaking your shoulder and murmuring, “It’s time, sir.”

You rub at your eyes and stand, and you walk out to the dais, cane clacking against the ground. 

Everyone goes silent as you start your walk, and only the uneven, staccato beats of your footsteps break up the quiet.

You didn’t think about it, before you scheduled this conference, but this is the same place where Grumman promoted you to General. It’s the same place that he first entered your life again, because of course it is. You know what cyclical means. 

You still for a moment, until Hawkeye shakes your shoulder again, and you realize that the world is waiting for you.

“Our government,” you begin, and your voice carries out over everything. “is a esteemed system of order. The might of Amestris is never to be questioned. We are ferocious, when wronged; when cornered, we respond with a rage so just and potent that the world quakes with it. We are respected, throughout our world. 

We are also feared.” 

“It is said,” you continue. “that is impossible to bleed a stone, but we have bled the earth — bled her for years, until all of our rivers run dark with it. We have said that we have repented for our sins, but our country has found itself drinking river water far too frequently; when we lift our faces from the bank, we are stained red.”

The reporters start to murmur, among themselves, and you talk over them, raising your voice, little by little. 

“I want the suffering to end.” You intone. “I want no more bodies to pile at our feet, and to resettle the torn dirt. When the blue of our uniforms glimmers in the gleaming light of the day I want it to be a sign of order, in the seething chaos. I never want our country to be a symbol of fear — never again. 

“These sins are not yours, of course.” You say, and you bite the corner of your tongue. “These are the sins of the military. Those that have died under my hand are my weight to bear, and mine alone. 

I killed people in Ishval. I killed people who didn’t deserve it — hundreds. Maybe thousands. And I had a choice in the matter – I could have walked away, but I didn’t, and for these sins I have not fully repented. There is much that I have given freely, and much that I still ought to give. 

But I have bled for this country — more deeply than, perhaps, any of you know. I lost my sight for this country. I lost my best friend. 

Not many of you are alchemists, I’m sure, but there's something of a principle we believe in.” You pause, and clear your throat once, then twice.

“It’s called Equivalent Exchange,” you say, and your voice comes out a little softer than before. “And what it represents is rather simple: to gain something, something of equal value must be lost. I have been granted power and, therefore, I sacrifice my health. I sacrifice my emotional wellbeing.

And, sometimes, I sacrifice the ones that I love.”

The crowd goes quieter. You may not have your sight to judge people, but you can feel the tension thrumming through the pavilion. 

“It is the greatest honor of my life to bleed for you.” You say, and your voice swells through the silence. 

“And I am loath to ask anything of you — but I have one request.”

“Not all of the military has sinned — but all of the military has bled for you. All of us have suffered. 

But some of the military stood for something other than suffering — something other than bloodshed. Some of us were symbols for what we always should have been. Some of us made me believe that red was no longer the color of those who have been crushed under the foot of our progress.” 

You exhale, and close your eyes, for just a moment. “So what I’m saying is simple, really. If you don’t already know — well. You haven’t been paying attention. 

Give —” And here, you choke, your words too big for your throat. 

“Give him back, _please._ Give me the Fullmetal Alchemist.” You say, and the world roars. 

Reporters, who had been restrained to the wings, swarm the sides of the stage. Riza grabs your arm, and you grab your cane, navigating through the crowd by banging the implement against shins. 

“General Mustang!” One reporter shouts, and you can hear the shutter of camera lenses. 

“You said that being the military causes you to lose those that you love, sir? Who did you lose?”

A smile clambers onto your face against your will, annoyingly persistent, and it makes you think of a certain someone, with a braid swinging in the wind. It makes you think of promises. 

It’s a little bit funny, how Ed once accused you of dishonesty.

“I told you.” You say, and you feel something ancient swell up in you — something distant, and aching, and golden. “If you don't already know, you haven’t been paying attention.”

You turn your back on the throng and walk. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You would think that you were used to mourning, by now. 

You’ve tasted so many different flavors of it. Bitter and red, dark green and grey; they’re all bitter pills, and all of them still sit under your tongue. 

You grab the flowers out of the storekeeper’s hand and shove too much money into the space between her fingers. The ribbons play in the empty space of your hands, sliding against the condensation coating the flower stems. 

Flowers mean quite a few different things, depending upon who you’re asking. They coat gravestones, and caskets, before they’re lowered into the dirt. They occupy pots, and places. They belong in hands, in photos, in memories. Some people think that they have to do with weddings. Maes always thought that they meant hope, and prosperity, and love, but you have always thought that he was wrong. 

You don’t think that these flowers have anything to do with happiness. 

You knock on Gracia’s front door, hands shaking in a way you don’t quite know how to stop.

“Roy.” She says, and she’s far more composed than you would have managed to be, in her shoes. 

“I got you begonias.” You say, in lieu of a greeting. 

“I suppose you did.” She says. “Do you want to…”

“If you wouldn’t mind.” You say, and you step inside her house, the door gently closing behind you. 

“Uncle Roy?” Someone asks, and you turn towards the noise before a little hand finds two of your fingers, and holds on tight. 

“Elicia, sweetheart.” You murmur. “How are you?”

“I’m okay, Uncle Roy.” She says, and she squeezes his fingers a little bit tighter. “I missed you.”

“I know you did, sweetheart.” You say, and your voice is shaking, like your heart is trembling to pieces. “I’m sorry I was gone for so long.”

“What’s brought you here, Roy?” Gracia asks. “You haven’t been since…”

“Since Maes died.” You finish. “I haven’t stepped a foot inside this house since Maes died.”

“Why, Roy?” Gracia asks, and she’s so _gentle_ with you, far more than you deserve. You’ve always known why Hughes loved her more than you — you were never kind enough for him. Hughes was always too gentle for his own good, too. That’s why it took him so long to turn you away. It’s why he broke your heart. 

“I loved your husband.” You say, and _damn_ , if it doesn’t scare you, to hear that said out loud. “And I didn’t know what to do with myself. I didn’t trust myself not to say something that I couldn’t take back.” 

Gracia exhales, deeply, and she takes the begonias from your hands. You didn’t realize how tightly you were holding them. 

“Thank you for telling me.” She says. “I didn’t know, but I should have.” 

She puts the flowers in a vase on the kitchen table. 

“But, Roy.” She says. “Why are you here?”

She’s just as sharp as he was — how could you have forgotten? You forgot how they were made for each other. 

And you never truly forgot how much that that scares you — that a love like that could be taken away. But seeing Gracia is always a reminder, of that. Of what’s left, when there’s only supposed to be nothing.

“I don’t know if I’m ever going to see Ed again.” You say. “And I want to know how you coped.”

“I didn’t, really.” She says, after a pause. “That’s the thing about grief – you never truly do just _deal_ with it. It ebbs. It flows.”

“Some days you cope just fine – you find other things to take up the space of your life.” She murmurs. “I had Elicia, and I was looking for work. There were things that I had to do, so I did them.” 

“But other times…” She says. “Imagine a room: two chairs facing the window. It’s just you – you and Ed. Nobody’s moving, and he says, ‘Look into my eyes,’ so you do. Imagine how the room isn’t moving, but he is. Imagine how you’re dancing, neck-to-neck, cheek-to-cheek. Imagine that he says he loves you. Imagine that he’s there.”

“Now imagine that he isn’t. Imagine that the room is falling away. Imagine that you can’t move.” She says. “That’s what grieving is like.”

“It’s like absence.” She says. “Of a person, of a choice. Of a chance.”

“I don’t hate you, for loving Maes.” She says, and she finally sounds like she’s feeling something.  “I don’t hate you, for leaving. But I swear to fucking God, Roy Mustang, if you give up on Edward Elric, I will walk out of your life and leave nothing behind.”

“You still have a damn chance.” She says. “The room’s not gone. Just wait for him.”

“Gracia…” You say, but you can’t say anything else, because there’s nothing. What the hell are you going to say, in the face of grief that fucking massive? You’ve never been any damn good with words, and you’ve never been good at understanding much of anything. That was what Maes was for — he put the maelstrom of feeling inside you to rest, gave you words to bind them with, sticks to drive them back. 

You have always had to fight with feeling. When you were younger and more of a fool, you came into the military fighting for your ideals. You fought for what you believed in, until you no longer believed in much of anything, except for the truth of it, which was that you never should have been fighting at all. 

But you’ve had time since then, and you learned, perhaps, that your cynicism was preemptive. You learned about the military quagmire, about Bradley’s corruption, about human transmutation. You learned that there were plenty of hells that you still hadn’t seen. You learned how to drive them back, one by one, but you still kept looking for the meaning of it — why you suffered, why you’re suffering. Why you’re blind.

  
But then you learned that the truth of it all is that you’re not supposed to look at it. You’re not supposed to _get it._ You’re not supposed to see anything. There’s no rhyme or reason to suffering, to loss. 

There’s no one way to forgive yourself. 

You think Ed’s known it for years but finally, _finally,_ you’re learning. 

There’s no truth involved in any of this. There’s just you and him — your bodies, possessed by light. 

“Thank you, Gracia.” You say, and it comes out of you quietly, like you barely meant to say it. You clear your throat, but before you can speak, she says, “Roy…” and places her hand on your arm. 

“Roy.” She repeats, and you incline your head towards her gently.

“You’ve made it this far.” She says. “Ed would kill you if you let something as little as grief take you down.”

You smile, and you can feel it come out—how, exactly? How exactly are you feeling? There’s something in you that’s beyond definition—all white and green and breathing. There’s something in you that feels like absolution. There’s something in you that feels like it’s come too late. 

If you’d forgiven yourself sooner, he’d still be here. But…

“He would kill me.” You say, and your voice is clear. “He would.”

You open the door. 

“I’ll come by and see Elicia at some point.” You say. “Maybe next weekend?”

“She’d love that.” Gracia smiles. “Goodbye, Roy."

You step out the door, and close it behind you

You lean back and place your head on the wood of the door. You look forward, and stare into the sunset you can feel sinking into your skin. 

You remember this view, is the worst part about it. It had been Maes’s birthday party, and you and him had stepped out, beer in hand, and looked up at it, at the trees all lined up down the boulevard, and the clouds swirling around in that dream-orange color like pinwheels. 

He’d put a hand on your shoulder, then, and he’d smiled at you, mouth too wide, eyes shut with whispers of crow’s feet at the corners, a glean of sweat on his forehead that shone like it meant something. 

You had wanted to kiss him, then, and he had wanted to kiss you too. You could see it in the lines of his body, in the twitch of his right hand, which always moved when he was nervous but knew he couldn’t throw a knife. You could see it in the way he strained towards you but closed his eyes, so he could pretend that he was only drunk, only stupid, only blind. 

He had placed his head on your shoulder and murmured, “There’s no hope for people like us, isn’t there?”

You had snorted, and placed your head on his. “We’re irredeemable.”

“Go to hell low and slow, that’s the only way to do it.” He’d giggled, all cigarette-raspy. “But maybe this’ll all be worth it, in the end.”

You look down at your feet, and you clench your fists. 

“Maybe,” you whisper, never quite optimistic, never quite full, but as close as you’ve ever gotten. “Just… maybe.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course he comes back. 

Ed shows up at your doorstep dog-tired, with two parallel scratches bleeding into his left eye and Central-sized knot in his hair. 

You’re cautious about opening your door, these days, because it’s not as if you can look through the keyhole and _check_ , but after a minute’s worth of knocking, you relent, and you’re greeted with two solid arms wrapping around your midriff and a forehead pressing into your clavicle. 

“Hey, Roy.” He says, gently. “I hope it hasn’t been a long couple of days.”

“Oh, you _asshole._ ” You cackle, and you hug him back so hard that he starts coughing.

“How’d you — how’d you escape?” You ask, hands tracing the lines of his body. 

“Two fists, some chutzpah, and a hell of a lot of luck.” Ed says. “Although one of the lackeys unlocked my chains for some reason. You got anything to do with that?”

You stick your face in his hair. “I may or may not have told the entire nation about my history in the Ishvalan Civil War.”

“Yep, that would do it.” Ed says, and he doesn’t sound surprised, or grateful, or ashamed. He knows what you would give for him. You both know, now, what you would give for each other. “Well. If you don’t have a career to go back to, I’m not sure you’re gonna spend your time.”

“I think I’m going to pick up the piano?” You say. “Although I’m still lacking the scarf that I was offered as incentive.”

“Give me a day to get back, geez.” Ed murmurs, and he goes silent for a moment. 

“Is this everything, then?” He asks. “The fireplace, the piano, the windowsill—is this the rest of our lives?”

“Is that a proposal, Edward Elric?” You snicker.

“I’ve never had very good impulse control.” Ed says. “But it’s not a proposal, I don’t think. I don’t think I need a ring, or anything. I just know that I’m not gonna leave you. I just know what I need to know, now—that we’re not gonna last without each other, so why bother? You’re stuck with me now, Roy Mustang.”

“Oh,” you murmur. “And isn’t that just so terrible.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading.
> 
> If it wasn't already obvious, this was heavily inspired by Richard Siken's Crush. If there's a line you liked in here, I probably stole it.


	6. the lowercase aesthetic — or, Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No one's ever any good at funeral speeches. No one's ever any good at endings. 
> 
> And yet—here we are. Arms open. There's the door—go walk through it. You've got two good legs, don't you?

“Dear Forgiveness, I saved a plate for you. 

Quit milling around the yard and come inside.” 

– Richard Siken, _A Litany in Which Certain Things are Crossed Out_

 

 

“Hello, Roy?” Maes Hughes says. “You’ve got something of mine.” He grabs one of his knives from up his sleeve, and jabs it into your chest. You don't gasp, or startle — you are looking at him, and you are beyond pain. 

“Maes?” You whisper, light and blistering like desert winds. You can feel the sand in your throat. “What are you —”

He grins at you, as big and beaming as it was when he looked at Gracia, or at you, long ago, on early army camp mornings, before the sun dared to disturb the two of you. You wish the aching in your chest was from the way your blood coated the floor. 

“There it is!” He says, delighted, and suddenly, he’s running green and scaly, with far too many eyes. His face vanishes, and suddenly his skin is screaming, tongues lolling and no ouroboros in sight. 

“Give it to me!” Envy says, in Hughes’s voice. “You killed him — and you didn’t even question it!” 

He keens, low and pleading in a way Hughes never was. “How many will bleed for you to live?” He asks. “Why don’t you die?”

And suddenly your hands are grabbing in your own chest and your heart is in your hands, all burned and melting, seeping between your fingers like philosopher’s stones and molten gold, like the eyes of a civilization long dead. 

“Hello,” you say, raising it to a store attendant who looks a lot like Riza, “could I exchange this? It doesn't seem to be working properly.”

She says, “No, we’re out of spares. Perhaps you’d like to talk the manager?”

She directs him towards the back wall, and the gate of truth sprawls in your view, white and gleaming like your ribs, poking out of your chest. 

“Back again, Mustang?” Truth asks, delighted, and suddenly they morph, until Ed is sitting in front of him, on a throne made of his own limbs. He’s laughing, in a way you’ve heard enough times that it’s made a home in your chest, and his eyes are dark like he knows exactly what you are — like he’s known everything all along.

You do not wake up with a scream. You do not scrabble at the sheets, hands grasping at solidity as you swallow as much air as you can hold. 

You do not open your eyes. You do not see the point. 

You lie there, spineless, until the last of the terror releases your throat, and you can hear the silence of the room over the thunderstorm loosing in your chest. 

You sit up and you feel your age, in the way the world rests in the curve of your spine. You feel heavy and creaking and low, like you’re sinking under the waves, and that the only reason you’re not dead is because you’re not at the bottom yet. 

“Roy?” Ed murmurs, low in the dark. “Are you good?”

“Not…” You rasp, quietly. “Not particularly.”

He rolls over to your side of the bed and presses his lips to yours, without any urgency. _We’ve got time._ You think. _Breathe with me._

He keeps kissing you, dry and dizzy in the dark. Any remnants of your fears vanish, until you can hardly remember that you felt anything but this. It’s been so long since you were young, but despite the years caking your skin, he, and this feeling, all warm running along your skin, reminds you of youth. 

In the way he presses flush against you, you see skies coated in summer, and days all honey-covered, sliding past you sweet and slow. You feel the all your old emotions fizzing up in you like soda bubbles, pink and fizzing against your lips. He feels heady. You thought you were too old for this. 

 _Thank you_ , you think, as loudly as you can. You’d say it out loud to anyone else, but — well. If you thanked Ed for everything he’d done, you’d be kneeling at his feet for eternity. And while you’d gladly lower yourself before him — gladly bow before the only thing in the world worth worshipping — some things are better left unsaid. 

You’ve trod this ground before — you don’t need a god. 

“I love you.” You say, and mean it as much as you've ever meant anything. 

He smiles against your chest, burning and intense and joyous. “I know.”

You laugh, a low rumble in your chest that comes out full-formed and bursting, louder than you meant it to be — but not quite loud enough, either. He makes you too full of everything to ever express it out loud. 

“Tell me…” you murmur, and he scoots closer to you. “Tell me we’ll never get used to this.”

“I thought you weren't one for promises.” Ed says. “I thought you weren't one for guarantees.” 

“Promise me you’ll never make me regret this, then.” You say. “Promise me.”

“I promise.” He whispers. “I promise, I promise, I _promise._ ”

 _We are all going forward._ You think, once more, for the last time. _None of us are going back._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope it all made sense, in the end. This probably wasn't the fluff you were looking for it, but I hope it was worth it, all the same. 
> 
> I like questions, or comments. You can post them here, but Tumblr's good too. Here's mine: https://walking-pillar-of-salt.tumblr.com  
> It's mostly memes, but. You know. In this economy. 
> 
> You know that feeling when you want to say I love you but you know it's too soon? When you know it won't mean anything? I don't know how else to say thank you. I don't know how else to be express that I appreciate that you made it to the end of this, as self-indulgent as it was.


End file.
